The metaphor of the perfect Autumn day is used frequently in used in literature and poetry. It has so many different connotations: The sadness associated with the end of summer, the slightly uncomfortable chill after months of warm sunshine, the cycle of life and then death as the crops are harvested and everything green turns brown...all contrasted with the beautiful pallet of yellow, orange, red and green that exists for such a small window of time during this time.

My long time riding buddy Todd Unpronounceable and I usually do some sort of motorcycle ride each Fall. The ride is usually run fast and loose...little prior planning and it usually comes together at the last moment. Four years ago was the "Blurring of the Leaves" ride one Saturday over Rocky Mountain National Park and up through the Snowy Range up in Wyoming. Three years ago we did the "Slicing through the Flat Tops" where we did a dual sport ride through the Flat Tops Wilderness area. Last year we had the "Beaten by the Buffalo" ride where we attempted to go over Buffalo Pass but were turned back by snow. We then spent the day riding forest service roads in the Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forests between Walden and Red Feather Lakes.

Last week I got an email from Todd asking if I'd be interested in heading down to New Mexico this weekend to watch the AHRMA motorcycle races at the Sandia Classic in Albuquerque. I had a free weekend and a new rear tire on the Beemer, so the 2006 edition of our annual Fall ride was on. Todd, on his KTM 950 Adventure would meet me at work Friday after work. He had to do two weeks of work in Phoenix afterwards, so he would head south on Sunday while I headed back north to return home for work on Monday morning.

The weather on Friday wasn't exactly ideal for making a long motorcycle trip: Cold, rainy with snow forecast for high altitudes. As a result, we squeezed our work schedules and headed out a little early at 3pm. We were in rain all the way south to Monument Pass, where it turned to sleet and snow. The snow wasn't sticking but a worrisome ride nonetheless given rush hour traffic and the potential for ice on the road.

Once back down off the Pass, the precipitation returned to rain. This continued the entire way through southern Colorado. We stopped for gas in Pueblo, then headed back into the rain to continue south. The weather only broke as we neared Trinidad. Our biggest concern with the weather was going over Raton Pass. As it turned out, this was the only time of the entire trip where the weather was nice. We got to watch a blood red sunset over the mountains and enjoy dry roads over Raton. We stopped in Raton for a brief gas stop but were back on the Interstate before the sky went dark.

Then it was hours in a cold rain, along with a vicious west-to-east side wind, all the way down to Santa Fe. We stopped at a grocery store in Santa Fe to buy food (we were staying with a friend in Santa Fe and didn't want to show up empty handed) just as the rain turned to snow for the night. My gear (winter gloves, Aerostich suit, Gerbing electric jacket liner) kept me feeling warm on the bike but walking around the grocery store made it clear just how cold my body really was. I was shivering the entire time. Food procured, we made a short ride through the snow to our friend's house and walked into Dan the Man's front door at 9:30pm after 6 1/2 hours of riding covering about 450 miles.

After a good (and warm) night's sleep, we got up at 8pm Saturday to head to the races. Dan chose his BMW R1200GS (rather than his BMW HP2, Ducati 999R, KTM 525, etc...) for the day's outing and we cruised down little two lane roads to breakfast at the San Marcos Cafe. As we passed a gas station just outside Santa Fe I signaled to Todd to see if he needed gas. He shook his head "no" so we kept riding. About 15 minutes later Todd rolled slowly to the side of the road and started shaking his bike side-to-side. Yup, out of gas. Dan pulled a fancy siphon tool out of his BMW and transfered over some gas to the strickened KTM. Finally, we made it to the cafe wherw e met up with our friend Steve who was riding his Aprilia Falco. Dan and I parked while Todd went to find gas. I had a gravity moment in the parking, tripping over a railroad tie surrounding a flower bed and falling flat on my face. My attempts at protecting my head resulted in a torn muscle on my left side. Ouch! Fortunately, Todd hasn't returned from getting gas so he didn't see my graceless parking lot flop which means I could give him grief about the gas without him having ammunition to fire back! After breakfast, we had a nice ride down CO-14 through Madrid, Golden and San Antonito to I-40. Then it was a 20 mile blast through Albuquerque to the Sandia Motor Speedway. The traffic going through ABQ was nuts - lots of unpredictable driving. We theorized that the rumored out of control meth usage in the west was centered on Albuquerque drivers. At the races we hung out with some of Dan's friends watching cool vintage road racing and motocross racing for the afternoon. One of Todd's friends was racing some beautiful CZ, BSA and Bultaco bikes in motocross and flat track. Meanwhile, Dan's friends were racing Ducati's in the roadracing classes. Way too much cool stuff to watch in such a short amount of time.

We decided to cut out a little early and take the long way back up to Santa Fe. This entailed a "spirited" sport ride up the Jemez mountain road. It was probably stupid and irresponsible but wow did we have a blast. The road is made up mainly of big, open sweepers meaning that the throttle can be twisted all the way to the "yippee" position. Steve headed home from here while Dan, Todd and I stopped in Los Ojos to grab green chili cheese burgers for dinner.

Todd and I have long talked about doing a dual sport ride at night. Over dinner, we decided this should be the night. We rode on towards Los Alamos then turned east into the Santa Fe National Forest just as the sun was setting. We had a blast for the next two hours exploring about 50 miles of national forest roads above Cochiti Lake. It is surreal trying to read the terrain in the dark, watching the road (and it's obstacles) appear into the light cone of the headlights. Stream crossings are normally interesting on a 600 lb BMW but are doubly so when hit at 20 miles per hour in the dark! Yee-haw!

Around 9:30pm, we finally pulled back onto a paved road. We'd had so much fun, we didn't head straight back to Santa Fe but instead zig-zagged our way across rural dirt roads through the towns of Los Cerrillos and Galisteo. We finally dragged our tired, dusty butts into Dan's garage around 11pm then sat up until 1am swapping riding stories and talking bikes. Truly the perfect Autumn day!

I had a horrible night's sleep thanks to my torn muscle which sent a shot of pain up my left side whenever I rolled over in bed. The original plan was to head back to Albuquerque on Sunday to watch some more racing but we'd had so much fun riding Saturday afternoon that Todd and I decided to get some more seat time. We decided on a late start, something I was all to happy to accommodate since I was sore and sleepy. We headed out around 10am, had brunch at the Tesuque Veggie Market and then headed into the National Forest north of Santa Fe for some more exploration. We ended up doing about 50 miles of one lane dirt road, including some beautiful hillsides covered with snow, yellow aspens and trickling streams. These roads eventually dumped us out near the top of Tesuque Peak at the Santa Fe ski resort. From there we joined a parade of tourists driving nose-to-tail down the curvy paved road back into Santa Fe. We got back to Dan's at 4pm.

I loaded up and headed back north to Colorado. (Todd stayed in Santa Fe to do a couple of days of dual sport riding with Dan before he then continues on to Phoenix for work.) My ride back was windy but dry. After about 100 miles of Interstate riding, I noticed some fluid getting sprayed onto my helmet visor. I then saw oil streaming up out of my right fork leg...I blew a fork seal during some of the dual sport riding. I stopped a couple of times to tape a shop rag diaper around the fork tube. I made good time, getting back over Raton Pass before dark. I stopped in Pueblo, Colorado for a quick dinner and to get all my cold weather gear back on. Another two hours and I was pulling into my garage at 11:15pm. The ride back took 7 hours. I was chilled but generally comfortable despite the thermometer in Nederland showing the temperature at 35 degrees.

All total, I racked up 1245 miles over the weekend. I came back with a head cold, a torn muscle in my side, a blown fork seal and an oil covered bike. The fact that I also had a mile wide grin proves that motorcycles really are the perfect vehicle (if I came back from a trip in my car sick, sore and with a broken vehicle I'd be *pissed*).

As always, my advice is to get out and ride!

Here are a few photos I took on the trip:

1) An Albuquerque City Police moto officer going through the course during an intra-law enforcement team skills competition at Sandia Motor Speedway:

2) Just to show who was top dog, this officer did the entire course two-up. He also went through it once while standing on the seat. This guy is the chief instructor for all New Mexico moto-cops and was a very, very impressive rider.

3) I think the coolest thing about going to a vintage race is just checking out the machinery. This pit contained two of my favorite old bikes: A BSA Gold Star and a Norton Manx.

4) You want wild and crazy action? How about sidecar motorcross? These bikes are specially built. Most have Earles forks, lots of frame bracing, street tires on the rig and riders that have a peculiar crazed look in their eyes.

5) Vintage motocross is probably the most popular part of an AHRMA racing weekend. Old guys on old bikes are the norm and the motocross classes all seemed full. I liked this mix of bikes: old Hondas, old Yamahas, old Bultacos, old Husquvarnas. A nice mix of Japanese and European bikes. These guys get air on the track too...just check out the guy in the background.

6) This is Todd's buddy Jim's CZ motocrosser. This bike was still being restored but was already a beautiful bike. A little gas tank leak repair and a rechroming of the exhaust and this bike would be ready to take on the show circuit. Fortunately, Jim treats it right by beating the snot out of it on motocross tracks. Oh, and it doesn't just get your attention by being pretty. Its a loud beast too!

7) As the sun was setting, we headed off-road into the National Forest above Cochiti like. This is Todd disappearding down the gravel road at the top just as the sun is setting on the peaks to the north.

8) An hour later, this is what the road looked like. We rode for about two hours after dark. It was like a video game trying to pick the best line as obstacles would appear in the headlight.

9) On Sunday, Todd and I explored the Sante Fe National Forest above Santa Fe. This road started out as a nice, graded dirt road but became rougher further up due to errosion from rain and melting snow cutting ruts in the road. It was on this road that I blew out a fork seal.

10) Hard to beat these kinds of views while riding, huh? This big stand of aspens is about 2/3 of the way up to the Santa Fe ski resort.

11) There were a few tricky spots where the previous night's snow hadn't melted out yet. It was hard to pay attention to picking a good line across the snow and ice when the trees are so pretty.

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