166 miles
When I asked Martyn and MacBean what they wanted to do when they were here, they only had one thing on their list. I offered Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore amongst other things. The only thing that made the list, Pikes Peak. Lisa knowing this was on the list shared this photo on Friday of the top of the mountain from the webcam.
By the time we were ready to go and had rechecked the conditions, this is how it looked with a forecast of 45ºF (7ºC) for the top of the mountain. I took the lads down another one my back roads to Monument. From there it was a quick hop down the highway to the Garden of the Gods. Mac and Martyn were duly impressed with rocks on our quick roll through the park. From here it was a quick run up 24 to the Pikes Peak highway.
As always the ride up Pikes Peak was enthralling and chilling. On the way up and down, we were speculating as to when it was deemed necessary for Armco barriers and when it was not. We settled on it was only necessary if you might land on someone below if you ran off the road. If you were would just fall thousands of feet you were on your own.
We did try our hands at videography. I think Martyn has a better shot at Hollywood than I do. Just look at his scene setting.
I don’t think any of the Pikes Peak racers have anything to worry about given our terminal speeds on the mountain.
I think we were about five-hundred feet below the summit here. My bike was showing its dislike of the thin air and needed to be revved like a Harley at a stop light.
We spent about 30 minutes at the top of the mountain getting coffee and the famed Pikes Peak donuts. None of us felt great at the top. We even waited for the elevator rather than climb two flights of stairs. We grabbed a quick picture by the sign and headed down to more coffee in Manitou Springs.
Someone is wrong. The official height of Pikes Peak is 14,115. BMW disagrees.
Although it was not on their bucket list of items to try, Mac and Martyn both decided they needed to stay in a real motel where we could park outside the room. Every willing to oblige, I arranged a stay at Motel 6 in Cañon City. It was supposed to be close to downtown but the description did not match reality. It was also in an Uber and taxi dead zone. We found two restaurants within walking distance. One was a Mexican and one was a sports bar. Given our earlier experience with Mexican and tequila, we opted to watch the Broncos play.
