Exit Tours M.C. shows us the scenic route around the Colorado Rockies
Words & Photography by Simon Cudby
Looking somewhere different to ride your ADV motorcycle? Here’s a suggestion: The Colorado Rockies. If that sounds good to you but don’t know where to start, Exit Tours Motorcycle Club is a good place.
Exit Tours M.C. is a non-profit motorcycle club that operates self-guided adventure and dual sport tours throughout the West, but the Colorado Rockies region is its bread and butter. With Exit Tours, you have several options when it comes to the type of terrain you want to ride, where you want to ride, and how many days you want to ride. And the best way to research all this is to simply visit Exit Tours M.C.’s website and start clicking away. You’ll get all your questions answered there. If not, give them a call or send them an email. You are required to join the Exit Tour M.C. to participate in their tours, but don’t worry, it’s just a formality. There are no required meetings, workdays, or politics to get involved in, you just join and ride.
We hooked up with Michael Brown of Exit Tours. He invited us to experience their operation and some of the best trails the Colorado Rockies have to offer. Our basecamp was in Buena Vista located in central Colorado in Chaffee County at 7965 feet above sea level. Buena Vista is approximately 100 miles east of Pikes Peak. Our plan was to spend the next six days exploring the Great Divide on dirt roads and trails.
When it comes to tour basics, attendees bring their own street-legal motorcycles that must be “capable of being ridden on rough dirt roads, two-track Jeep roads and trails.” It goes without saying your bike must be fitted with a USFS-approved spark arrestor and not excessively loud. Also, Colorado requires a Colorado OHV sticker to access forest trails. There are other minor requirements, of course, but you get the gist.
As mentioned the club’s tours are completely self-guided, via GPS tracks to navigate the unmarked routes. This means, you can go at your own pace, start your ride whenever you want (though the club wants you on the trail by 9 a.m.), ride with whoever and how many you want, and, if desired, make deviations along the way. But the best part is that Exit Tours plans the route for you and loads the track into your personal GPS device that you bring, which, yes, can be your phone. (They have an app, so you don’t need cell service.)
“With all the widespread OHV closures, knowing where to go and how to get the best time out of your riding day is now more valuable than ever before,” the club says. “We have scouted out the best routes and eliminated the dead ends, private property fences, closed routes and roadblocks.” That sounds like a pretty sweet deal to us.
Exit Tours also plot out the gas stops, food stops, lodging and all the logistics, so you can just ride and focus on having fun.
Our six-day ride went by in the blink of an eye. Some of the highlights included Trout Creek Pass, where Highways 24 and 285 come together forming the Crossroads of the Rockies.
Our routes included 16 of the 18 iconic Rocky Mountain passes in the heart of the Rockies. Some paved, a few fun twisty dirt roads and several challenging Jeep roads were the norm.
Many of the guys and gals that attended brought two bikes and enjoyed the longer, easier adventure loops and some of the dual sport loops, which included challenging single track on the trail ride loops.
We had a wide variety of dual sport, single-track and adventure trails on offer. All our GPS routes cloverleafed from the River Park Mine area. We really appreciated the work Michael put in to provide us with some perfect GPS tracks. With over 20 tracks to choose from with varying difficulty, we had plenty of adventuring to sample.
The heart of the Rockies includes some of the best trails and dirt roads in the country, almost all with spectacular views of the Continental Divide. Chaffee County has more “fourteeners” (mountains over 14,000 feet) than any other county in the U.S. And the area includes the longest continuous OHV-legal single-track trail in Colorado.
The headwaters of four major American rivers start near X-Roads in the heart of the Rockies. The Rio Grande, Colorado, Arkansas and South Platte watersheds are the playground for the adventure loops, dual sport rides and single-track trail rides at X-Roads BV.
And then there was Mosquito Pass at 13,185 feet. It’s a challenging rocky uphill on an ADV bike, so if it’s on your route, be prepared to work hard. It worth it, though. Once you crest the top, you head down to a cool old mining complex. You’ll also be rewarded with spectacular views of the Collegiate Range peaks and the Continental Divide.
We experienced several midafternoon thunderstorms that watered the dirt fire roads perfectly. At times, we got wet from the storms but 15 minutes later, it was hot and humid, so be prepared for changing weather no matter what time of year you go. We went in summer, so we looked forward to cooling off in a river at the end of the rides.
We thoroughly enjoyed our six-day ride and hope to get the chance to come back again. We’ve only scratched the surface of the Colorado Rockies. CN
Click here to read the Cruising Colorado in the Cycle News Digital Edition Magazine.
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January 05, 2023 at 03:00AM
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