Mother Nature And The Perfect Ride

Ron 0:14

May I share with you what my perfect mountain motorcycle experience may look like? It's when I hear my mom's soft voice and I see just how beautiful she is. She's my mother, and she's your mother too. Mother Nature. You see, sometimes to find the perfect ride, the perfect experience, we need to be in the right location at the right time. And then we get off the bike, we take off our helmets, and we take a few deep breaths and just stand there quietly. And it's right there when we gaze across the distant peaks and we see Mother Nature all around us. And it's right there in the stillness where we hear her speak to us through the sound of the wind through the trees, or from the waterfall down in the canyon, or from the distant thunder of a storm miles and miles away. That, my friends, is my perfect mountain motorcycle experience.

Welcome And A Storm Outside

Ron 2:04

Welcome back to the Peace Love Moto Podcast. I'm your host, Ron Francis, recording today from my home base here in Loveland, Colorado, at the gateway to the Rocky Mountains. And speaking of storms, there's one brewing just outside my window right now. I could wait it out and wait until it's quiet, but hey, that's our mom, isn't it? Making her presence known. And that's a wonderful thing. We most certainly need the moisture out here in the west. So hopefully we do have some rain coming. Wherever you're tuning in from today, I'm glad that you've taken some time to visit with me today. And I'm just happy to have you along for the ride.

The Secret To Being Transformed

Ron 2:47

You know, there's lots and lots of guidebooks and recommendations for places to ride in the Rocky Mountains, but today we're sharing what I'll call the secret to mountain motorcycling, which can make your tour not only about reaching a destination, yeah, that's all good, but about being transformed by what you experience. That's the ultimate goal. It's the subtle shifts in timing, in pace, in presence that turn a potentially chaotic and rushed vacation into the mountains into an experience that could remain in your memory and in your heart for a lifetime. This topic of fully experiencing the indescribable grandeur of the Rocky Mountains is deeply personal to me. I've lived near Rocky Mountain National Park and the surrounding national forests here for almost 30 years. And for several years now, I've worked part-time as a professional tour guide in the National Park, taking thousands of guests, many of them first-time visitors into the park. I know the Rocky Mountains really, really well from both Jeep tours and from the seat of a motorcycle. So many times I've met other motorcycle riders visiting our area, typically on a schedule, on their way to and from hot spots listed in their travel books with hotel reservations made well ahead of time. Got to get to where we're going, right? For example, Estes Park is listed as a must-see for so many of us and all of our guides. And I get that. I certainly do. It's wonderful. I met a couple of writers just recently who are making their way through and the tourist-filled streets of Estes Park. And so often I'll ask them if they took a ride through the national park and specifically if they rode over the magical Trail Ridge Road, which is the highest continuous road in the United States. It goes to 12,500 feet. It's I can't describe it. It's just something you have to experience. And too often they'll say, Well, we didn't make time to see that. Was that worth seeing? And after I pick myself off of the floor and keep my mouth shut, I just respond, yeah, that was worth seeing. Over all those years, leading those tours and spending countless hours alone on my bike up in the mountains, I have learned a fundamental truth. The absolute best mountain experience comes down to just a few things. Taking your time for one, and having a well-thought-out plan, and maybe most importantly, having the right mindset. Allowing Mother Nature to show you something magical.

Plan Like A Great Corner

Ron 5:44

So, what if we applied some of these ideas to the techniques we use for riding a motorcycle? So, for example, in cornering, there's a fundamental technique called slow in, fast out, right? You set your speed early, and then you look all the way through the turn, staying relaxed on the handlebars, and then you roll smoothly into the throttle. What if we applied that same idea to how we plan a full day of riding in the high country? So, for example, when we rush into the mountains during peak hours, say 11 a.m. on a July weekend, we're going to bring that flatland chaos right along with us. We'll hurry to make up the miles and stress over the GPS arrival times and fight traffic at 10,000 feet. We should be looking at the views. Instead, what if we practice this off-peak strategy? Rolling out at first light, when the air is crisp and the morning sun is just painting those granite peaks a shade of gold like you wouldn't believe. And the park, even what may later be a busy day, the park is all yours. Because you see, the RVs are still in the campgrounds, and the wild animals are out grazing where the crowds are not. That's where you can go on your own. And that's a beautiful thing.

Slow Down And Notice Everything

Ron 7:08

Maybe another tip for just having the best possible experience in the high mountains on a motorcycle is just to slow down your pace by half. When you drop your pace, you you lose this false sense of urgency, too, because it is a false sense. Your grip on the handlebars loosens and your vision expands beyond the center stripe in the road to notice all the beautiful things around you, the tall snow-capped peaks. You can smell the scent of the pine needles as the sun begins to warm them up. The light on the aspen stands, how they flicker with the wind, and the massive scale of the canyon walls. See, you're you're not just surviving traffic anymore. You're feeling the flow. You're getting into the flow of the landscape all around you. And it's within that flow. Yeah, you find your mom, you find Mother Nature, and if you're really paying attention, she may have something to share with you. I think that once you've learned the art of missing the crowds and you've caught those quiet views of the wildlife grazing at dawn or at sunset, I know from experience that something deeper can begin to be revealed to you.

Peace Of Mind In The Mountains

Ron 8:42

This is where we step beyond the logistics and enter the true art of finding what I'll call peace of mind in the Rocky Mountains. I have experienced that many, many times. I've been so blessed to experience that.

A Quiet Meadow At 11,000 Feet

Ron 9:14

So with that, I'd like to share with you this true story, which I don't think I'll ever forget it. It was a large family out on vacation together. They'd rented the Jeep, so it was a private tour. They'd rented the Jeep and the driver. The driver was me. It may have been a family reunion, as I recall, and I do remember that they said that they were from Chicago and had never been to a national park before. Certainly never to a place like this. And I remember observing the dad in the group, probably the one who paid for this tour. He seemed a bit quiet. He also seemed a bit stressed. Stressed by the kids and maybe the responsibility of arranging this tour for the entire family. So we reached about 11,000 feet, and I parked the Jeep and I led them all on foot to a high mountain meadow where I often take people. Well I'd always take people whenever there's not a lot of snow on the ground up there. Snow capped peaks in every direction. And I told them the names of the peaks, and I shared with them that we were at, yeah, 11,000 feet, almost a tree line. See, I'd done this tour a hundred times. Probably my second or third tour of that day. I remember being pretty tired. So so yeah, I I told them about the history of the space, that the uh Native Americans likely hunted and camped there. I do love that space. I wasn't tired but enthusiastic. But then I went quiet. I went quiet by design. Always went quiet there with each tour because my hope, or should I say, my hope for them, was that they would experience silence, maybe for the first time, away from the noise and chaos of the big city of Chicago in this case. My hope was that mom would be heard, that she would speak to them. And it was then in the quiet moment, with my back turned to the group. Actually, I was just looking up at the peaks, but the father of that group walked over to me and he stood right beside me. And I'll never forget what he said. He said, Ron, I feel the presence of God here. And I paused for a second and just said, the first thing that popped into my mind. I said, Yes, sir, I do too. I do every time. And maybe all of this was created just for me and you to experience right now together, so that we could be reminded of how small we are and how big and wonderful God is. He said, Yeah. I'll never forget that. That's why I'm a tour guide.

How Nature Speaks In Awe

Ron 12:53

Just like with that experience with that gentleman from Chicago, I've seen the same thing happen with a lot of people in a lot of different ways. Call it coming from a spiritual realm, or I don't know, I just like to call it coming from mom, mother nature. She doesn't speak in a human voice. I think the best way I can describe it is she speaks in awe. The awe of amazing things that are put right in front of you, things you can't begin to describe. She speaks, I think, in the steady, timeless rushing of the mountain wind across the alpine tundra, way up there on Trail Ridge Road. She speaks in the swaying of the Ponderosa pines, through the call of a red-tailed hawk soaring way above us. It's caught a thermal up there, just having a ball, and in the absolute profound stillness of a massive valley stretched out below you. As James Taylor would say in one of his songs called Gaia, where you feel helpless and speechless and breathless. I think in our daily lives we are so bombarded by noise and maybe an artificial sense of urgency that we shouldn't really have. But when we stand in the presence of these Rocky Mountains out to my west, who have endured millions of years of wind and rain and snow and ice and sun and us walking all over them. When we observe them, we can still quiet our minds. And the mental clutter just melts away. And maybe you learn how insignificant those daily anxieties really are in the larger scheme of things, and how deeply connected you are with this living planet right underneath your feet. That sense of awe, that quiet, humble stillness is where true peace of mind lives. And for me and you as motorcycle riders, so often we get the privilege of finding that peace of mind from the seat of a motorcycle. To take the smaller, slower roads, dodge the crowds, and listen for that quiet voice in nature. Listen for your mom.

Share, Support, And Farewell

Ron 16:17

So if today's episode brought a little extra peace or inspiration to your day, I'm so glad. Share it with your riding buddies. Once again, I want to thank my friends over at Viking Bags for their product support of this podcast. And if you too would like to support the podcast, there's ways to do that. Just check the show notes, and there's some options there. But until we visit again, I do wish you peace. I wish you love and all the great rides ahead. And I hope to see you out there. Take care, my friends.