This was one of those rides that came together while swapping e-mails last week. COG Webmaster Rick came up with the theme. I sent an e-mail out to the COG folks that live along the Front Range and we ended up with a nice group on a sunny Saturday morning: Bill on his first COG ride, Josh on his second, and regulars, Paul (who started his ride in 28 degree weather in Buena Vista), and Ed on his bright yellow VFR.

From our meeting place in the southwest corner of the Denver area it was a quick 4 miles over to Deer Creek Canyon and into the foothills. Left, right, repeat. Left onto High Grade road for some tight twisties. Up US-285 from Conifer, then south at Pine Junction. The road descends down through Pine and Buffalo Creek with smooth pavement, 35-45 speeds, and pretty scenery. South of Buffalo Creek it opens up with higher speed sweepers and rewards the rider with beautiful views of Pikes Peak before it tightens up again along the South Platte River heading into Deckers. After Deckers the road follows a creek up through a canyon with lots of medium speed sweepers. Finally it tops off and runs through park like forest into Woodland Park. Because of the scenery, the good pavement, and the abundance of corners, I never get tired of riding that road!

Anyway, since we were on a fact finding tour, our first stop was in the tiny town of Pine where the library keeps a bunch of their books outside when the weather is nice. I don't know if we actually found any facts, but we had more than a few laughs acting like we were and taking pictures of the whole deal. After putting our books back on the shelves, we continued on down 67 to Woodland Park for lunch at a deli / pizza place. Being short on facts, we told lies and tales of the road. Rick told us about his COG trip to Europe and follow-on ride to Hyder, Alaska. I countered with tales about my trip to Hyder in May. Josh and Paul told us of the experiences they had on the Two-Bits rally. Bill and Ed kicked in their two bits too. Eventually we hit the road, Paul and Ed heading on into Colorado Springs, and the rest of us having to backtrack through all that scenery and all those curves through Deckers and Pine.

A good time was had by all. We'll have to have more of these short, fun rides.

- Randy Bishop, Littleton CO, October 6, 2004