Colorado Motorcycle Tour

Colorado has a reputation among riders, and the Million Dollar Highway is most of the reason. This self-guided loop out of Denver takes in that road and a good deal more besides: seven nights, around 1,050 miles, and a week spent almost entirely above the treeline or heading towards it.

The route climbs quickly. Denver gives way to the Arapaho and White River National Forests on the run to Glenwood Springs, then the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, a gorge so narrow and deep that sunlight reaches the bottom for only part of the day. After Montrose comes the stretch riders come for, Highway 550 over the passes towards Cortez, with the San Juan Skyway continuing the theme.

The southern leg swaps mountains for history. Mesa Verde’s cliff dwellings sit high in the rock face, built and abandoned centuries before Colorado existed, and the Four Corners Monument is a short detour from the same road. The return north runs through the Rio Grande National Forest, past Salida and the old mining town of Leadville, and finishes with a final crossing of the Arapaho National Forest into Denver.

EAGLERIDER provides the motorcycle and books every night’s hotel, with Harley-Davidson touring models alongside Triumph and BMW sport machines. Fuel, meals and insurance are separate. Riding days are comfortably sized, between 100 and 260 miles, which matters on roads this demanding. For anyone who prefers altitude and switchbacks to straight desert highway, Colorado is the obvious answer and this is a well-judged week of it.