The longer you ride, the more memories you have to catalog. While not every ride is life-changing, each one almost always makes the day better. An advantage to being a motorcycle magazine editor is that many of my more epic rides are chronicled—formerly in print, and now on this website.
However, in the days of Ultimate Motorcycling’s antecedent Robb Report MotorCycling, not every story made it to our website. I thought they were all there, until I searched for one and it was nowhere to be found. While we have had stories drop in various migrations between servers and providers, those seem rare.
Recently, a friend posted on social media about riding on the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado. That ignited some memories; Associate Editor Kelly Callan and I rode that incredible route in 2006. Kelly was on a Ducati ST3 S, and I rode a touring-accessorized Moto Guzzi V 1100 Breva. The Million Dollar Highway is part of an extensive route in southwest Colorado—the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway.
In the case of that ride, it was undoubtedly a memorable one. We were on two great bikes, riding through beautiful scenery on fabulous roads, visiting lovely small towns, and experiencing some unexpectedly chilly late-summer weather.
I went to our website to find a link to the story so he could read about our experience, and it was nowhere to be found. Searches for “Breva” or “ST3” didn’t have the results I sought. It was pretty clear our Spaghetti Western story may have had print immortality, but was absent online. Fortunately, our record keeping is good, and I quickly found the story’s digital assets and brought it to virtual life.
Although re-reading the story wasn’t quite as good as the original experience, it did remind me of a few great things about the ride that I had forgotten. I hadn’t remembered a couple of great meals, and I was thrilled to see that some of the restaurants and hotels we enjoyed are still thriving. If you think sushi can’t be good in Durango, Colorado, you haven’t been to East by Southwest.
Of course, indelibly imprinted on my mind has been how much I enjoyed the Breva. For her part, Kelly still raves about the ST3 S, and we both relish our memories of the ride, from rocks falling on my helmeted head from a crumbling cliff to a family of big horn sheep crossing the road in front of us—all part of life’s rich pageant. And, without any doubt, motorcycles have made my life immeasurably richer.
It’s always time to create new memories, and don’t forget to document them.
