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This year the same thing again. This spring has been unusually hot and windy, and for this year's Memorial Day weekend ride, a Concours Owners Group regional ride on the "Devil's Highway" in Arizona, we woke up to snow on the bikes Sunday morning in Alpine, AZ.
I went prepared to camp out, but since the weather was uncooperative, few showed up and four of us ended up sharing a motel room. Besides myself, Rick Hall, from Phoenix and the organizer of the ride who really paid his "dues" for the trip, Dave Clark from Flag, Mark Folsom, all the way from Lyons, Colorado. Talk about somebody who loves to ride! Since there was snow, we decided to let the sun melt it and dry out the roads and we headed off for breakfast at the Blue Spruce.
Finally, when the sun had dried everything enough, we started out on our loop through Luna, NM, Glenwood, and across through Mule Creek and on to Morenci, AZ. If you've ever ridden 666(US 191), that's where the fun really starts. It was my third time to ride theis very twisty, rather lonesome road. 80 some miles of tight corners, beautiful scenery, and little traffic, but remember that there always could be a cage just around a corner.
Actually before you get to Morenci, from around the New Mexico state line, the road does get interesting, dropping some four or five thousand feet in just a few miles. On one particular left hand hairpin marked at 30 MPM, one rider from one of the two Ducati groups doing the same ride, went off. Don't know how or why, but when we arrived on the scene, the police were there and we saw no bikes with any visible damage. A few miles later we passed an ambulance in no particular hurry. We were not sure if that was a good sign or not, but discovered later that everything was OK.
The moral of the story of course is, if you want to have fun on two wheels, you'd better know your limits. We minded out limits on the twisties back to Alpine, with a stop at the Hanagan Lodge, which is currently undergoing remodeling. The food was excellent, even though the service was a little spotty.
Since I was committed to home duty for the weekend, I headed back home after saying my good byes in Alpine. Heading home through Zuni, I met up with a couple of Beemerphiles and we rode together into Gallup. After stopping for gas, I had an easy ride back to Albuquerque, with the wind at my back for a change. A new personal best for this particular bike of 510 miles in a day.
Comments, problems to: Me, rickh@concours.org
Last updated 22 Apr. 96