Day fifty five, moab ut to montrose co

It’s about 370 Kms give or take, from Moab in Utah back to Montrose in Colorado where we needed to be to start the next series of great rides. Rather than take the most direct route on the interstate in a straight line, we took the scenic route which was anything but direct, but it turned the day into a series of three totally different but absolutely stunning rides. You can see from the REVER app tracking our route that it was anything but direct. I am posting photos of the three separate sections of the ride.

Part One starts right on the edge of Moab at the bridge over the Colorado, here we turn right onto Route 128 toward Castle Valley and the wee village of Cisco. This road is virtually deserted as no one uses it, it is like its own National Park as the road follows the Colorado River through the red rock canyon formed by the river, for about 60 km before then cutting across country, desolate barren country I might add, to link in with the I70 at Cisco. The road surface used to be as rough as guts as we had ridden it twice before but they have recently resurfaced about 40 kms of this route at the Cisco end and it makes for an excellent ride. The pics of the ride through this canyon on Route 128 are pretty obvious.

Part two, starts at the town of Fruita, which we arrived at after exiting Route 128 onto the I70 and blasting about 60 kms out to Fruita. At Fruita we had a quick look through the North Colorado Dinosaur museum, bit of a disappointment to be fair, amateur hour if you know what I mean, but better than no dinosaur museum.

Right on the edge of Fruita is the Colorado National Monument, a fascinating piece of Geology seen from overlooks along a 25 km Twisties piece of road out of Fruita but dropping out the other end at Grand Junction where we had lunch.

Once again, the geology is quite different to Castle Valley so you will spot what is and is not The Colorado national monument as I have posted those after the dinosaur pics.

Part three of the days trip starts after lunch out of Grand Junction. About 50 kms along the I70 again, we exit onto Route 92, the Brand Mesa scenic byway.

It was 39 degrees when we left Grand Junction, when we stopped at the visitor center at the top of the Grand Mesa it was 22 degrees, but of course we were at 10,350’ asl, Beautiful riding conditions. Not only is the Brand Mesa Scenic. Yeah an awesome motorcycle ride but the views from most of the ride are outstanding. It is literally a huge Mesa sticking out of the earth so you have views for miles in every direction.

Down the other side into Delta and then on to Montrose we were back up to about 37 degrees by the time we got to Montrose.

Another totally awesome days riding in Utah and Colorado. More of the same to come Tommorrow.