Seeking snow at Berthoud Pass

As I finally had Natasha back in my possession after an extended repair sojourn, today she and I rode out of the Denver Metro area to look for some snowy mountain peaks.

It's been a pretty mild winter so far for us here in this part of Colorado so I had to head out all the way to the town of Empire, located at the junction of I-70 and US40, before I started seeing snow accumulations on the side of the road.

The sun was out most of the morning and so it was quite the pleasant ride along the frontage road paralleling the crazy traffic pattern that is I-70 westbound during a Sunday.  Only one mechanical mishap and not related to the recent repairs.

I'd stopped for gas next to a "park and ride" lot where a Conoco gas station was located.  I'd forgotten to check the tire air pressures on Natasha before heading out and wanted to make sure all was well there.  As luck would have it, the dang valve stem installed on the inner tube for the sidecar wheel failed!  Yep, it would not seal anymore.  Luckily, I had a spare, and after fueling up was soon on my way.  Do you carry spare air valves for your inner tubed motorcycle?

 The valve removal tool, built into the air stem cap, handy to have

Example picture of the air valve that failed, goes inside the inner tube's air stem

I reached Empire without further incident and cruised through the small town with no issues and no snow in evidence yet.  As I went past the small group of houses that comprises Berthoud Falls though, it looked more promising.  Still, anyone on two wheels could have ridden all the way to the parking lot of Berthoud Pass with no issues.  The parking lot however, was snow-packed, a bit dicey when on two wheels....not so much on three wheels. 

At the entrance to the parking lot at Berthoud Pass

The requisite shot of the pass sign

 A view of the twisty roads heading from the pass to Winter Park to the North

This is as close as I bothered to park Natasha to the pass sign

I retraced my route back towards Empire, as I didn't have enough time to cruise down the mountain towards Winter Park today.  I could see an incoming front of clouds and wanted to make sure I was on the right side of the Continental Divide if it was bringing snow along with the dark clouds.  The next four pictures are views of the nearby mountain peaks that one can see while riding down towards Berthoud Falls.

Just before Berthoud Falls, I took the turnoff exit for the Jones Pass Trailhead.  I wanted to see how much snow had accumulated on the narrow road leading from the trailhead's parking lot.  As on a previous ride, the road was snow-packed and my "city" tire was not getting traction.

So I turned around and headed back towards Berthoud Falls but not before stopping for this shot of the road leading towards Jones Pass:

Returning from the Jones Pass Trailhead

I elected to use frontage roads instead of I-70 eastbound to make my way back towards Idaho Springs.  From Idaho Springs, I could see that traffic was thick and heavy on eastbound I-70 (typical for a Sunday afternoon).  So I jumped onto CO103, the road which leads one to Echo Lake and the Mount Evans road instead.

Although Mount Evans Road is closed, CO103 remains one of my favorite twisty mountain roads to ride.  One thing though, its now the time of year when large stretches of the road are snow-packed and not recommended for two wheeled motorcycles.  

I made it up to Echo Lake with no issues, traversing several stretches of thinly snow-packed pavement on the way but with very little traffic to worry about.

Echo Lake, yeah the lighting was bad....sorry

I continued on CO103 and soon was past the passes at Juniper Pass and Squaw Pass.  Then it was time to turn onto Witter Gulch road and head down the mountain towards the town of Evergreen.  The road was clear of snow, just loose dirt and gravel and steeper than I remembered it.  I could feel Natasha's brakes sometimes causing sliding motion as the tires almost locked up at the hairpin turns.

Still, I got down to the valley just fine and only seeing one deer off in the woods and no threat to me on the road.  I turned right on Upper Bear Creek Road to pose Natasha at the usual spot where one can see mountain peaks.  Today though, the incoming front I mentioned before blocked the view of everything but the closest rock formations:

West of Evergreen, next to Upper Bear Creek Road

I then took the quite twisty Upper Bear Creek road into Evergreen.  It's a narrow two lane road with very little room at the shoulders due to the fences bordering the road.  Caution is usually a recommended thing on this road as deer tend to frequent it as well.  Again, I only saw one buck, munching on something while standing in someone's driveway.

The rest of the ride was the usual twists and turns through Evergreen, Kittredge, Idledale along CO 74 which is also known as Bear Creek Canyon Road.  Had to endure having a tail gating A-hole along the last stretch of this fun road as I decided not to pull over and let the idiot pass.  I was maintaining the speed limit and figured she could as well!

Not much else to report, used US285 to cross the Denver Metro area once again and was home before 4:00PM.  Natasha did great throughout the ride of roughly 150 miles or so, about six hours in the saddle.

Now, for some snow closer to home perhaps.....

36 days later, Natasha is back home!

A happy day for me today, as repairs on Natasha, my Ural Sidecar Rig were finally complete.

My loving wife drove me to Golden, CO where Linden Engineering is located and dropped me off.

Natasha was waiting for me to take her out for a test ride, which I did after a lengthy conversation with both Dennis and Linda, the husband and wife team who run Linden Engineering.  There is no such thing as a short conversation with either one as they are quite gregarious and yet very pleasant to converse with.

Took Natasha out for a test ride after Dennis fired up the engine to show how smooth she was "ticking over".  First thing I noticed was the whine of the alternator which is now repaired and providing power once more to the rig.  Yes, I've gone back to the Russian Hand Grenade alternator, we'll see how long this one lasts.  I've had many conversations with Ural mechanics and they've persuaded me to try it again.  The key apparently is aligning the alternator's gear correctly with the timing gear.  Not too tight (and quiet) and not too loose (and noisy).

The test ride went great, no issues and the rear brakes really work well now that Dennis replaced the shoes for the rear drum brakes and adjusted them.  Her idle is at a low 700 rpm but Dennis assured me she was fine at that and to ride her for a bit that way.

More conversations later with Linda while she made out the invoice, another talk with Dennis about keeping an eye out on the swingarm which he thinks is a bit out of true and placing some stress on the final drive and rear wheel assembly.  He'd been unable to pinpoint it and my eagerness to get her back precluded more time in his hands.

Yes, it had been a long time without my Ural but it all seemed worth it as she pulled strongly through the gears as I headed away from Linden Engineering, through Golden and up the road to Lookout Mountain to give her a little workout and shakedown.

 Here's Natasha on the way up Lookout Mountain with Golden CO

and points south in the background

A panoramic view of the same location, to give you a better view of the curvy road up the mountain

She did fine running all the way up to the top of Lookout Mountain and back down again towards US40.  I took US40 east back towards town and ended up taking the side road down to the town of Morrison.  I was trying to get used to the additional engine noise caused by the alternator, she's definitely a bit noisier now but I  can live with the noise now that battery range is not an issue.

As you can see from the pictures, we had ourselves a beautifully sunny day with temperatures in the 50s.  This brought out many other motorcycle riders as they too enjoyed the weather.

I took city streets back home from Morrison, Natasha still performing great and me getting used to riding on three wheels again.  It felt quite good to "lean out" on the sharper right hand turns while going at speed, I'd missed that.

I got her home, cleaned her up from all the oil that had spewed out when she broke last month, put the leg guards back on to cut down the updraft when going faster than 50 mph, removed the second deep cycle battery (thereby regaining valuable trunk space in the sidecar), and generally got her settled into the garage.

The girls are back together

So, how would I rate Linden Engineering?  I'll put it this way.  They've always given me the impression of being a one man shop with all the pluses and minuses that go with that.  So, why did it take so long to get Natasha fixed up?

Lack of repair parts for one, apparently the rocker arms have been redesigned for the newer models and are not backwards compatible.  After the initial orders had resulted in the wrong parts being sent out from Ural, Dennis found that the factory had recalled the ones I needed but failed to supply replacements to the dealer network.  Dennis basically had to hunt them down by calling the suppliers/dealers he knew, finding one rocker arm in Florida and the other in Tennessee!  The Ural parts and supply network is apparently pathetic, though apparently some guy has been hired by Ural to fix that, I wish him luck.

Second, Dennis lost the use of his "motorcycle guy" at about the same time that all required parts finally arrived at the shop.  This was about two weeks after I'd left Natasha at the shop; and this left him a man short and the workload is such apparently that Natasha was untouched for over a week.

Third, Dennis had to try and cover for the missing tech and shortly after that the temporary loss of another of his mechanics which added to his own workload.  At this point, he was two mechanics down, so really it was only the last couple of days (not counting Thanksgiving Day) when Dennis himself had time to work on my Ural.

Dennis is definitely a top rate mechanic with many years experience.  If you take your Ural to him, be prepared for it to take a while if parts have to be ordered.  If he's short staffed, it'll take longer obviously.  If its something minor, and he's got the parts, it really shouldn't take very long at all if he's got the time.  Heck, you might get fixed that same day.  

There is no dedicated parts department, that would be Dennis.  The parts delays due to availability is nothing he can control, I see that now.  Time to start looking on ebay for parts I guess, to hold in stock.  Sad reflection on Ural but I guess I've been spoiled by how BMW always stocks parts even for the vintage era motorcycles!  This is not the case with the Ural, I guess its part and parcel of Ural ownership.  I was lucky he had a cylinder head assembly on hand, otherwise Natasha would probably still be waiting for parts.

One last thing, if you're used to or want daily feedback and reports, they're too busy for that at times.  Linda did her best but she's not technically conversant and every time Dennis has to stop to render status for a customer is time he's not working on a vehicle.  I think I found this the most frustrating.

I would say, once Dennis gets his staffing issues sorted out, that I will return to him for repair work when I need it on the Ural.  Patience is definitely something you need for small shops like his, so make sure you have a spare motorcycle and a good long period of good weather ahead if your spare doesn't have three wheels!

On the plus side however, its small shops like this that give your vehicle that personal touch.  Dennis "sorted out" some other things on Natasha as he found them.  It added to the cost but if it improves things, why not.

Thanks Dennis and Linda for getting Natasha fixed up!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Update: 12DEC2010:  Well, the repaired alternator didn't last very long.  I spotted smoke coming out of it today while riding, I took it off when I got home and fear I may have overtaxed it by hanging Christmas lighting on the rig.  So I started the process of removing the alternator in order to remove the adapter gear that mates to the engine's timing gears, this to take the alternator out of the equation until I could get it fixed.

example picture from Bill Glaser's myural.com website

The gear you see in the above picture is the adapter gear which mates to the timing gears.  As I unbent the cotter pin to start its removal, the piece I was unbending broke off!  You wouldn't think that after only two weeks of daily usage, the pin would break that easily, would you?

I got the cotter pin off and it was showing signs of wear/damage at several points.  I'd read about situations where this cotter pin goes "missing", the castle nut comes off, the adapter gear gets loose and causes damage to the timing gears.  Kind of similar to what happened to me when I first got Natasha, except in that case the gear seized somehow and sheared off instead.

I got the adapter gear off and thanked my lucky stars I'd overtaxed the alternator with the Christmas lights.  You see, the silver lining to my overtaxing the electrical system was finding a failing cotter pin.  I believe it would have been just a matter of time before the rest of the cotter pin failed, and eventually the whole gear would come loose, ruining my timing gears again!

Natasha is back to using a total loss electrical system, she's much quieter now too with the alternator out of play.  I'd not realized how noisy the damn thing was until I fired her up after putting her back together.  

Panos anyone?

I was looking over all the panoramic shots I've shot from last year and this year, looking to replace the header picture on this blog, for variety's sake if nothing else.

As I searched and found these panoramic shots, I revisited those rides in my mind and thought you might enjoy seeing them again as well.  Here you go, in no particular order. (click on the picture's caption for a link to the ride when the picture was taken, except for first picture).

 On Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park

 Overlooking Silverton on the San Juan Skyway

 Descending into the valley at the Rocky Mountain National Park

 Riding the "Oh My God" Road

 Guanella Pass

Colorado Highway 103

 Coal Creek Canyon Road

The Hairpin Turns of Lookout Mountain 

 Sunshine Mountain and Wilson Peak

 Molas Pass along the San Juan Skyway

The Uncompagre Mountains 

Pikes Peak

 Flattop Mountain on the San Juan Skyway

 Mount Princeton at the Collegiate Peaks

Sunset near the foothills 

Twilight Peak along the San Juan Skyway

Airhead Bean Cans and Fog Banks

Recently, I'd bought a used Bosch Ignition Trigger Unit from a guy on advrider.com who was parting out a 1983 BMW R80RT motorcycle.  His motorcycle had only 30K miles on it when he decided to part it out and so the ignition trigger unit or "bean can" as it is nicknamed was less "used" than Brigitta's own bean can.

You see, once you put enough miles of use on a Beemer Airhead's bean can (over 90K on Brigitta), you have to take them apart and lubricate some linkages inside.  Otherwise, you sometimes get some surging type behavior while riding at speed, very annoying.  Last year, the indie mechanic I take Brigitta to had done this and recent behavior on the part of Brigitta had led me to purchase a working spare.

The job of the bean can, is to trigger the coil's generation of electricity to the spark plugs I believe, there's a mechanism inside, which spins in conjuction with the engine's crank shaft and as it moves, another mechanism senses its travel and "triggers" a signal to the coil to do its thing.  Not sure if this entirely correct but you get the idea.

Why not a new one you ask?  Well, BMW or Bosch are really proud of this unit, and it costs well north of $500!  The cost of a used unit was $100.

This morning, I followed the manual's procedures in removing the front engine cover on Brigitta and exposing her bean can and alternator:

The bean can is the smaller can shaped object, the thing with all the wires is the alternator

 Rear view of the old bean can

Front view of the old bean can

Removal and installation are pretty straightforward, the hardest part being to disconnect the old unit from the ignition system.  It's only hard because its located in an ackward location.  Just take it slow and careful so you don't break off the locking tabs.  Make damn sure you disconnect, as it says in the manual, the battery's ground cable when removing/installing the front cover...you don't want an accidental electrical short frying your ignition system module.

The new(old) unit in place, I fired Brigitta up and checked the timing mark.  It was not right, so a slight rotation of the new bean can and I could see the timing S mark centered.  I ran the revs up to 3200 rpm and saw the Z timing mark as expected.  Cool!.  I tightened things down, buttoned her up and of course took her out for a ride.

I went to the nearby prairies which are north of the Aurora Water Reservoir and Park.  Brigitta was running a bit smoother than yesterday and running nicely by the way.  I wandered about the dirt trails and posed Brigitta as usual atop on of the small hills:

Sunny skies and Colorado Prairie

 Distant fog bank

Notice that fog bank in the picture above, I went to see if  I could get closer to it.  It was a thick fog bank rising from the water reservoir, caused by the temperatures in the low to mid 30s we were enjoying here in the east side of the Denver Metro area.

A little bit more dirt riding, along trails which occasionally showed deeply rutted channels where trucks and such had probably gotten stuck when it was muddy.  The end of the trail was a fenceline barring further progress to the reservoir itself.

I turned around, topped another small hill and posed Brigitta while we were in the fog bank itself:

Inside the fog bank

The fog bank moves on 

As you can see, the slight wind I was feeling was moving the fog right along and soon I was under sunny skies once again.  I rode back towards pavement and noted while doing so that my Brigitta's idle was a bit lower than usual.  The tachometer only registered in the 800 rpm range and while not causing issues, I knew it was suppossed to be closer to 1100 rpm.

Rode home, turned the idle stop screws 1/4 turn inward, now she idled closer to 1000 rpm.  A quick followup ride and she was just fine and dandy.  It'll take more riding to see if swapping out beancans will eliminate the surging I'd experienced.  The behavior is very random you see, some days you get it, some you don't.

Now I can see if I can do the linkage lubrication myself or have it completely rebuilt for about $150, still much cheaper than a new unit.

Hope you got some riding in today.....

A new battery for Brigitta after some unexpected snow

Brigitta, my '87 R80 Beemer had been, of late, hard to start as the days got colder around here.  I'd been putting off buying a new battery as they are quite pricey and I have been known to "try and save money" by trying other remedies, doing the work myself, etc.  Usually, it worked out but not in this case.

Today, I rode into work with temperatures in the low 30s but sunny and dry roads.  I put the grip covers on Brigitta's grips and didn't even have to turn on the heated grips during the 12 miles or so to work.

During lunch, it was nice and sunny, temperatures in the mid to high 40s as I rode down to the Beemer dealer to pick up some parts and a new battery.  I wasn't going to install it you see, just have it with me if the current Panasonic LC-X1220P battery failed me on the next cold day.  The parts lady confirmed I'd be able to return the unused Westco battery so long as I didn't break open the plastic covers on the terminals.

Well, turns out I didn't have to wait till tomorrow's forecasted colder conditions.  As 4:00 PM approached, I could see the skies darkening and clouding over.  As I was packing up my gear, my co-workers stopped by my cube and told me it was snowing.  Yep, snowing.  I thought they were just kidding me but when I looked out the window there were big thick snow flakes coming down in a pretty stiff wind.  Damn.

Still, it had been such a warm day till then that the roads were warm and the snow was not sticking, just melting immediately so I hurriedly made my way to Brigitta and got ready to go.  I found her in the parking lot, covered in a thin layer of snow/ice mixture, which thankfully was melting.

I packed up my gear onto her and I turned the key, hit the starter button and she weakly cranked several times until I knew the battery wasn't going to do it, even though it had come close a couple of times. Did I mention it was still snowing?

But I was prepared, as it continued to snow, I broke out the spare battery from the side case, used my small jumper cables to hook it up to the onboard battery and a couple of cranks later, she fired up!  I used the throttle screw to keep the revs up as I packed everything back up.  This had taken only a few minutes but now the snow had stopped and it was just dark and windy and rainy....perfect riding conditions!  Not!

The winds were pretty strong so I elected to take city streets instead of the usual open county roads back towards my home neighborhoods.  It was rush hour, cagers all about me with rain coming down and nicely wet road surfaces.  I will admit it was a bit of a tense ride, but I had only one instance of the rear wheel attempting to slide during a stop.  I kept my following distance longer than usual and thankfully all the cagers I had behind me kept their distance for the most part.

I'll admit the heated grips were quite nice on the ride home, in fact, in the HIGH setting they get almost too hot!  I had to turn them down to low as they were almost burning the palm on my right hand.  No, I elected not to put the grip covers on in my rush to get going.  They would have helped but tend to be a bit in the way when wet.

Brigitta did great all the way home, and I was happy the snow had stopped before I left the parking lot at work.  I didn't get too wet (didn't bother donning my rain pants), got home and changed out the battery forthwith!  I started Brigitta up with the new battery and she kicked right over, we'll see how she does tomorrow.

As you can see, I'll be keeping the new battery.  I really hope I get Natasha, my Ural Sidecar Rig back soon....today's weather was more her style than Brigitta's!

Veteran's Day

Traditionally, I would ride to the Logan National Cemetery in the west side of the Denver Metro area and pay my respects to the many veterans buried there on Veteran's Day.

Lacking my Ural sidecar rig, Natasha and having to work, will curtail that activity for me this year.

Picture from last year's ride to Honor an American Serviceman

Still, I ask you to remember and honor the veterans who've served this country so well, those that gave their all serving the nation in its many wars and in peacetime, and finally those men and women currently in harm's way overseas.

I thank all veterans for their service, and inter-service rivalries aside, couldn't possible imagine a better representation of what makes my adoptive homeland one of the greatest countries in the world.  A country I am proud to have served in my own meager fashion.

I leave you with this, easily found in a myriad sites across the Internet, which pretty much says it all:

It is the Soldier, not the minister

Who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the Soldier, not the reporter

Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the Soldier, not the poet

Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer

Who has given us freedom to protest.

It is the Soldier, not the lawyer

Who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the Soldier, not the politician

Who has given us the right to vote.

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,

Who serves beneath the flag,

And whose coffin is draped by the flag,

Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army

The National Colors fly at my house today, do they at yours?

First snow for the season, still no Natasha....but I did ride.

Yesterday's rain/snow mix resulted in about an inch of snow accumulation on the grassy areas of the neighborhood and not much of anything that I could see from my garage door.  That is, a nice icy cover of frozen snow on my driveway.

Normally, I would have laughed it off and fired up Natasha, my Ural Sidecar rig and ridden off to work at the normal time.

Sadly, she's still in the shop, waiting for some part.  I am told it's inbound (again) and maybe they'll even send the right part.  I am not so confident anymore and refuse to have my hopes dashed once again.

So, I decided to work from home, doing a bit of telecommuting.  But before the day started for me, a little bit of shovel work, along with a special tool for chipping away at ice and finally a bit of snow melt salt, and I had me a path out to the dry cul-de-sac:

As expected, the roads in the neighborhood and the main roads were dry though there was the occassional wet looking spot in the shade that made one wonder.  These I managed to avoid, for the most part, or made sure to just cross while making no turning maneuvers.  It was a short ride as the sun had barely been up an hour and had not done its magic.

As I worked the rest of the morning, dutifully I might add, I could hear the snow melting off the roof and making noises as it fell off the roof edges.

Lunch time came about and I headed out once more to truly dry roads and bright sunshine.  It was a balmy 29°F as I rode to the Beemer dealer to have my battery checked out.  You see, as I went to start the R80 Beemer I call Brigitta yesterday afternoon, she balked.  Mind you, it was hailing lightly and the clouds were fearsomely dark and the wind was waiting to snatch me up into the sky.  No pressure.

Oscar, my co-worker friend came to the rescue with jumper cables, I got Brigitta going and got home only mildly wet and slight chilled.  I thought my battery was just too old.

So there I am at the dealer and they graciously broke out the tester and hooked it up to Brigitta, the battery was pronouced "good".   Hmmmm.  They did suggest that I change out the oil as I was still running the 20W50 oil for the summer.  I had been planning to do this in about 1000 miles but elected to do it this afternoon.

It's good that I did!  I found the rubber donut seal had been slightly damaged by the metal o-ring type disk and hence the slight oil leakage I'd been trying to figure out lately.

The oil has now been changed, the battery is all charged up.  So of course we're expected to wake up to 1-2 inches of snow tomorrow, Thursday, Veteran's Day.  Sigh, I really miss Natasha.

Changing weather at the Georgetown Loop Railroad Park

Oh the things I find myself doing to make Mr Jack Riepe happy.  He'd strongly requested a blog posting about the Georgetown Loop Rail Road, which I'd briefly mentioned in this post:  LINK

So today I left the Denver Metro area shortly before 10:00 AM under sunny skies and temperatures in the high 50s with a steady wind.  I was near Georgetown about an hour later and parked Brigitta in the Georgetown Loop Railroad's Devil's Gate train station.  I had arrived just in time in seems, as the 10:30 train had been delayed by a boulder on the tracks.

One's first view of the train carrying passengers on the loop, 

a few minutes after it departs the station at Devil's Gate.

There's the train, chugging slowly across the elevated track that

makes it so famous a tourist attraction

I then saddled up and got on the westbound slab of I-70, heading mistakenly towards the Bakersville exit because I thought there was a view of a different portion of the elevated track used by the trains back in the day of gold and silver mines.

The winds really picked up in speed as I neared Bakersville and all I could see was a dark, solid gray cloud coming my way.  The winds were hitting Brigitta and I head on and making life "interesting", then it started to rain which quickly turned to snow.  I started having flashbacks to the time back in June of 2008 when right about the same spot on I-70, I went down due to ice.  Not good.

Frequently wiping the ice building up on my helmet visor, I made it to the Bakersville exit and crossed over I-70 on the overpass.  It was snowing quite steadily now though it was not sticking to the road so far.  I rode past a State Trooper in an unmarked unit and he did a double-take when he saw me, can't say I blame him for that.

Thought about using the frontage road to make my way back to Georgetown but I soon found it covered in a light layer of snow, again, not good.

Made my way slowly back to the eastbound slab of I-70 and basically rode the shoulder of the road at about 30 MPH while traffic passed me on the highway going much faster.  I guess they didn't have to worry about ice buildup or didn't know better.

Soon I'd lost enough elevation that it quit snowing and it was just raining.  The thermometer on Brigitta was reading 34°F though so things were still a bit too "interesting" for me.  I got off at the Georgetown exit and used frontage roads all the way to the US40/Empire exit. I stopped there to don my wet weather pants and for this shot of the "soup" I had left behind me:

That was some thick soupy weather back there!

I kept riding and soon found myself east of Idaho Springs and in bright sunshine!  I looked back towards the west and damn if I didn't see clear blue skies!  I was reminded of a saying here in Colorado:  "If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes, it'll change".  Today, was one of those days that proved that saying.

So I said the heck with it and turned back towards Bakersville to try  and capture the shot I'd seen while riding by on the highway.  It was a bit brisk up there but the roads were drying up nicely as I motored towards Bakersville.  The strong winds were still in evidence though.

I went past the Bakersville exit, thinking the view of the Railroad Loop was west of the Bakersville exit.  I used exit 218 which exists apparently to provide a turnaround point for traffic on I-70 as there's nothing else there.  A little bit of snow under the overpass crossed and then I stopped for these mountain views before once again heading eastbound on I-70:

 Brigitta on the frontage road that is part of exit 218 along the I-70 slab

Here she's pointed east.

A view to the west on the frontage road accessible via exit 218

Turned out that it was not at the Bakersville exit on eastbound I-70 that one sees the Georgetown Loop Railroad's elevated track but at the scenic overlook just before Georgetown!  Disappointingly, it turned out to be a view of the track that I'd shot earlier this morning!  Oh well.

 The view of the elevated track from the scenic overlook west of Georgetown

From the overlook, you can see the train crossing the creek  which I-70 borders

I was a bit tired at this point from the tense riding conditions earlier so decided to bag it for the day.  I got on the eastbound I-70 slab and with just one stop in Bergen Park for gas, rode straight for home.  I covered around 250 miles or so today, in weather that covered all seasons: Sunny, Rainy, Windy, Snowy.  Only in Colorado!

Note to Jack: I'll keep working on getting some good shots of the Georgetown Loop Railroad, today they weren't using the old locomotive as you see.