Continental Divide – Finale

This post should conclude our CDR trip. It was really fun putting the story in print and I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. This is the final post of a four post series. Look at the menu on the right to navigate to the beginning if you want. We love seeing all the comments and appreciate the personal e-mails, thanks. We have more trips planned but nothing epic on the little bikes for now. We leave in two days for another GPS Kevin adventure on the big bikes (F750GS and Africa Twin). It seems like another Mexico trip is in the works, we’ll see what form that takes….

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Continental Divide- Colorado

The section from Rawlins, WY to Steamboat, Colorado was just plain fun, starting with a straight paved section south of Rawlins that suddenly turned to gravel as we approached the forests the Sierra Madre mountains. It felt good to be climbing back into the mountains with the tall pine and fir trees surrounding us. Soon we were over 8,000 feet at Middlewood Hill before dropping down only to climb again to 8,600 feet where we pulled over at a viewpoint for the 9,098 foot Battle Mountain in the distance. It was a spectacular view, so much so that I forgot to take a picture… go figure. Finally, we crossed into Colorado and rode another favorite section along the border before cutting south on CR129 through the beautiful Aspen forests. What… was my camera broken??

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Continental Divide Route Reset

Bikes loaded – check. Riding gear loaded – check. Full tank of gas and sunglasses – check. 516 miles later we were checking into our hotel in Mountain Home, Idaho. We decided to pick up the CDR route in Salomon, Idaho after dropping off the truck at our friend Michael’s house in Hailey, ID, (yes – porkchop in every glass guy). As we got closer to the Idaho border we started seeing more and more smoke in the air. Wow, fire season was in full swing and like much of the West, Idaho was having more fire than usual in 2020. Continue reading

Continental Divide Route – Part 1- cont.

Six thirty AM and we were both awake looking at each other, we needed to leave. I don’t know why, but we both somehow knew it. Breakfast was out of the question but we needed coffee, bad. The luxury honeymoon suite didn’t have a coffee pot but there was a microwave which was good news. We always travel with Starbucks Vias, their instant coffee packets that will suffice for a caffeine fix in an emergency. This wasn’t an emergency but I didn’t want to wait around for there to be one. I found some Styrofoam cups in the bathroom and made us each microwaved instant coffee. I dumped two packs in each cup to save the time of having to make two cups each. Next, I stuck my head out the door and was relived to find the bikes were still there and the car with the tinted windows gone. The coast was clear.

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The Great Continental Divide Route Part 1

I keep thinking back on this trip and wonder why I never got around to telling this story. In August of 2020 in the midst of the great pandemic, Deby and I decided to ride the Continental Divide Route, CDR for short, on our small bikes. This would be my last trip on my trusty WR250R and Deby was on her updated WR250R,we were riding the twin Yamahas. Riding the CDR is challenging enough but we found that navigating the logistics during the pandemic threw in some unexpected curve balls.

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