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RideWolf · Colorado Springs
A 14,115-foot summit at the end of a paved road fifteen minutes from town, a free red-rock loop you can ride before breakfast, and a ring of gold-camp roads the internet keeps calling motorcycle rides when three of them are dirt. The Springs has the mountain. What it’s short on is somebody to ride it with.
You’re on the list. We’ll be in touch. Now go ride.
Free to join. The first 500 Colorado riders get a permanent Wolf Pack badge.
Every city on this site has a signature road. Colorado Springs is the only one where the signature road has a gate, a cashier and a ranger with a temperature gun. The Pikes Peak Highway is the reason riders come here, and it’s run like a park: $18 a person, a timed-entry permit in summer, a 30 mph limit the whole way up, and a brake check at Glen Cove on the way down. None of that is a complaint. It’s the most managed 19 miles of pavement in the state, and it tops out higher than anything you can ride in Arizona, Nevada or California. The point is that you need to know the rules before the gate, because the gate doesn’t care that you rode in from Kansas.
Here’s what I can tell you honestly: I haven’t ridden any of it. I started at 49 in Los Angeles on a used Night Train that has never been above the Angeles Crest, and Pikes Peak is on a list taped to my shed wall, not in my odometer. What I do recognize is the problem underneath this page, because it was mine. I wanted a bike for thirty years and didn’t know a single person who rode. Family finally introduced me to riders, and that one introduction is the only reason I’m still on two wheels. The Springs is a military town and a college town, which means riders move in and out every year without ever finding each other. Somebody just got stationed at Carson with a bike in the garage and no idea who to call on Saturday. This page, and the app behind it, are for that rider.
These are the places to ride a motorcycle within a day of town, scenic roads first. Everything in this table is pavement end to end, verified at the agency or operator that runs it. Lengths marked with a tilde are routing estimates. The Springs sits at about 6,200 feet, so even the “low” rides here start higher than most of the passes back home.
| The road | What it is | Length | High point | Cost and catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pikes Peak Highway (US-24 at Cascade → summit) | Toll climb above treeline, switchbacks from Glen Cove up, 2+ hours round trip | 38 mi round trip | 14,115 ft | $18 per person May–Nov, $10 Dec–Apr; $2 permit per bike in summer; 30 mph; closed Thanksgiving, Dec 25 and Hill Climb day |
| Garden of the Gods (Garden Drive / Juniper Way loop) | One-way park loop through the red rocks, grades to 15 percent | ~6 mi | 6,400 ft | Free; 20 mph for everyone; gates locked at night; closed to motors on Motorless Morning Sundays |
| US-24 Ute Pass → Wilkerson Pass → Hartsel | Four-lane climb out of town, then open two-lane sweepers into South Park | ~65 mi | 9,507 ft (Wilkerson) | Year-round; Wilkerson visitor center is summer only; Zuccaro’s in Hartsel is Thu–Sun |
| CO-67 Divide → Cripple Creek → Victor | Mountain sweepers up to a gold-camp town at 9,500 feet | ~18 mi + 6 to Victor | ~9,500 ft | Year-round; nothing to eat up there that I could confirm, so plan around it |
| High Park Road (the Gold Belt’s paved leg) | Ranch-country sweepers between the Cripple Creek side and CO-9; CDOT calls it “this paved route” | — | — | Year-round; the other three Gold Belt roads are dirt (see the next table) |
| CO-9 Hartsel → Guffey → US-50 | Empty high-plains two-lane, then a canyon drop to the Arkansas | ~47 mi | — | Year-round; Guffey’s lodge serves Fri–Sun only, the old saloon has been shut since 2023 |
| Skyline Drive, Cañon City | One-way ridge road built by prison labor in 1905, the land falls away on both sides | 2.8 mi | — | Free; enter from US-50 on the west edge of town; narrow, no passing, daylight is the sane choice |
| Royal Gorge spur (US-50 → County Road 3A) | Short run to the bridge and park | short | — | Park open 365 days; $39.95 adult, tickets in person only; south gate permanently closed |
| CO-115 Colorado Springs → Penrose | Fast connector south to US-50 and the Cañon City roads | ~33 mi | — | Concrete-panel work at mile 14–19 still listed active, one lane head-to-head weekdays 7 to 7 |
| Frontier Pathways (CO-96 Wetmore → Westcliffe; CO-165 → San Isabel → Rye) | Wet Mountains sweepers through a burn scar, Bishop Castle on the CO-165 side | 103 mi | — | Open since Aug 7; temporary one-lane bridge at CO-165 mile 16.5; forest both sides closed to Dec 31, 2026 |
Ride the park first, then the mountain. Garden of the Gods opens at 5 a.m., which is the only hour the loop is yours. It’s six miles, one-way, 20 mph for everyone including bikes, with hills the city rates at up to 15 percent and gates that lock at 9 in winter and 10 in summer. The land was deeded to the city in 1909 on the condition that it stay “forever free,” and it has. Twice a year the city closes it to motors entirely for a Motorless Morning until noon. The 2027 dates weren’t posted when this page went up, so check before a Sunday run. Then take US-24 fifteen minutes west to Cascade and turn up the Pikes Peak Highway. Everything about that road gets its own section below, because it’s the one ride here that can send you home at the gate.
Then go west over Ute Pass. US-24 climbs four lanes out of Manitou, levels off through Woodland Park, and turns into the real thing past Divide: Wilkerson Pass at 9,507 feet, then the whole floor of South Park opening up in front of you. The visitor center at Wilkerson is summer only. Hartsel, at the far end, is where you turn south on CO-9 through Guffey to US-50 and ride the Arkansas back toward Cañon City, or turn north toward Fairplay and the roads on the Colorado state page. Tarryall Road, the county road from Lake George up to Jefferson, is the quiet way across the same country and the Stagestop Saloon at the top is open Thursday to Monday, but I could not get a primary source to confirm it’s paved the whole way, so ask a local before you commit a street bike to it.
Cripple Creek is the short one everybody does. Eighteen miles of CO-67 from Divide up to a casino town at 9,500 feet, six more to Victor. Every August the Salute to American Veterans Rally fills it with more than 1,500 bikes. The 2027 dates weren’t posted yet. What I could not confirm is anywhere up there to eat. The city’s dining page lists places with no hours and every one of them lives on Facebook. The Cripple Creek side is also where the Gold Belt roads start, and this is where the internet will get you hurt.
Search “motorcycle rides Colorado Springs” and you’ll find Phantom Canyon, Shelf Road and Gold Camp Road on half the lists. All three are real, all three are beautiful, and none of them is a street-bike road. The agencies that run them say so in plain words.
| The road | What the agency says | What that means on a street bike |
|---|---|---|
| Phantom Canyon Road (Florence side → Victor) | “The gravel road follows the route of the Florence & Cripple Creek Railroad”; climbs 4,550 feet in about 30 miles through narrow bridges and tunnels | Thirty miles of gravel on a 700-pound cruiser. No. |
| Shelf Road (Cañon City → Cripple Creek) | BLM: “It is a dirt road”; CDOT: “4WD recommended on Upper Shelf”; the pavement ends past Red Canyon Road | The paved part is a few miles out of Cañon City. Turn around where it does. |
| Gold Camp Road (Colorado Springs → Victor) | Forest Service: an 8.5-mile section “closed due to the collapse of a tunnel,” closed “since 1988”; a 2006 plan to reopen it was reversed and “no further action is proposed” | Not a through road for anyone, on anything, and it hasn’t been for 38 years. |
The Gold Belt byway is 131 miles on paper. The paved share of it is High Park Road and the approach to Cripple Creek. Ride those and leave the rest to the dual-sport crowd, who are welcome to it.
The road is 19 miles from the gate at Cascade to the summit, 38 round trip, and the operator says to budget at least two hours. It’s open year-round, weather permitting, and closed three days: Thanksgiving, December 25, and the Sunday of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which in 2027 is June 27. The hours move with the season, and so does the price.
| Season | Uphill gate opens | Last entry | Summit closes | Adult fee | Permit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1 to the Thursday before Memorial Day | 9:00 a.m. | 3:00 p.m. | 4:00 p.m. | $18 to Nov 30, then $10 from Dec 1 | None |
| Friday before Memorial Day to Labor Day | 7:30 a.m. | 6:00 p.m. | 7:00 p.m. | $18 | $2 timed-entry permit per bike, 165 a day, one-hour arrival window |
| Tuesday after Labor Day to Sept 30 | 7:30 a.m. | 5:00 p.m. | 6:00 p.m. | $18 | $2 timed-entry permit per bike |
Now the parts that are specific to us. There is no motorcycle rate. The fee is per person, 16 and over, so a solo rider pays $18 and a couple two-up pays $36. The summer permit question is answered on the operator’s own FAQ in one line: “Do I need a reservation if I’m riding a motorcycle? Yes.” It’s $2, it’s per vehicle, it covers the road past mile 7, and it isn’t sold at the gate. Your America the Beautiful pass is not valid here. Motorcycle trailers are prohibited, so you ride up or you don’t go. The speed limit is 30 unless posted lower, uphill traffic has the right of way, and the operator asks you to start with at least half a tank. On the way down, rangers “may conduct brake-temperature checks at Glen Cove.” I had a rear caliper come off my Night Train once, a mile off the freeway, so a ranger pointing a thermometer at my rotor is a thing I’d thank him for. Ride the descent in a low gear and let the engine do the work. The Hill Climb hasn’t had a motorcycle class since the board dropped it in 2021, and that’s not an invitation to run your own.
The summit visitor center has a self-serve café and the high-altitude donuts everyone mentions. The road-conditions line is 719-385-7325, option 1 twice, updated about fifteen minutes before the gates open and again as the weather turns. In October it turns fast.
The Frontier Pathways byway, CO-96 from Wetmore over to Westcliffe and CO-165 down through San Isabel to Rye, is the long ride south of the Springs, 103 miles of sweepers through the Wet Mountains and a dark-sky valley at the far end. This summer it burned. The Aspen Acres Fire started June 29, 2026, ran to about 102,000 acres, and took more than 850 structures in Pueblo and Custer counties. It destroyed the CO-165 bridge at mile 16.5 on June 30. CDOT had a temporary one-lane bridge carrying alternating traffic by 1 a.m. the next morning, which is still what you’ll cross. The highways reopened August 7. The National Forest on both sides of CO-165, and east and south of CO-96, is closed through December 31, 2026 under a Forest Service order, though Lake Isabel and its lots stay open. Flash floods off the burn scar have chewed up roads near San Isabel since. The Lodge at San Isabel reopened September 25, Friday through Sunday, after repairing fire and flood damage.
Bishop Castle, the one-man stone castle Jim Bishop built on CO-165 between 1969 and 2019, survived with the fire about 200 yards away. Jim died in November 2024, and his son Daniel is caretaker now. The castle’s own site still says visitors are welcome “every day of the year, from sun-up to sun-down” on donations, and it hasn’t posted a word since the fire. Reviews from this fall say people are getting in. Call before you make it the point of the ride, and don’t expect aspens on CO-165 for a few years. This is a rider’s road again, but it’s a different road than the one in the old photos.
Colorado Springs sits at 6,181 feet at the airport, and the NOAA normals for it run 45 over 19 in January, 61 over 34 in April, 87 over 58 in July and 65 over 37 in October. The surprise for an out-of-state rider is the rain: July and August are the two wettest months of the year here, just over three inches each, and almost all of it falls in afternoon thunderstorms that build over the mountain and roll east across town. The National Weather Service line for mountain country is to “be down the mountain by noon,” and on the Pikes Peak Highway that’s not folklore, it’s a schedule. If you get caught, the Service’s advice to riders is to pull over at a safe building and “wait 30 minutes after the last rumble of thunder before resuming your ride.” Pueblo’s forecast office, which covers the Springs, says the hail here runs “pea size to softball size.” You don’t ride through softball size.
Winter is the other way around from the passes up north. Pikes Peak stays open on a 9-to-3 gate, the Garden of the Gods never closes for season, US-24 and CO-115 run all year, and a 45-degree January afternoon on the plains is a riding day if the roads are dry. The road to watch is the one you can’t see from town. The summit can be in a whiteout while Manitou is in sunshine, which is what the conditions line is for. Lane filtering past stopped traffic is legal in Colorado at 15 mph or less, two-wheelers only, and that permission expires September 1, 2027 unless the legislature renews it. The full law, helmets and eye protection are on the state page. If you’re new to a bike that lives at altitude, how to ride a motorcycle is where I’d start, because the descent off Pikes Peak is a long lesson in engine braking.
I checked every bike night listed for Colorado Springs and could not confirm a single weekly one on the venue’s own site, so you won’t find a weekday printed here. What I could confirm is better. The Pikes Peak HOG chapter meets at Pikes Peak Harley-Davidson on North Nevada Avenue the first Saturday of every month, and the ride rolls at 10:30 after the meeting. The November one goes to Cañon City, and their second November ride takes in the Pueblo Reservoir and Skyline Drive. Their line for non-members is “You may also join us on one of our rides. Just show up.” Cripple Creek’s Salute to American Veterans Rally is every August. Beyond that, the Springs rider’s calendar is the rallies and events page and whatever you build yourself.
RideWolf is for the rider who already knows the mountain and has nobody to run it with. Out of the Springs it goes like this.
Early access for the Springs. No chapter dues, no waiting for a first Saturday, no hoping the guy at the Cascade gate is friendly.
We match you with riders in the Pikes Peak region who ride your pace and your kind of day, whether that’s a dawn loop in the park or 300 miles through South Park.
Up the mountain before the permit window, over Wilkerson while the afternoon sky is still clear, down CO-165 to see the castle for yourself. Then someone to split the donuts with at 14,115 feet.
Straight up: I’ve never been to Colorado Springs, and I built this page the way I’d want one built before I rode out there, from the operator’s rate sheet, the Forest Service order and the city’s park rules rather than somebody’s memory of a trip. What got me, reading all of it, was a town with a fourteener out the front door and a military base rotating riders through every year, and no obvious way for the new guy to find the Saturday crowd. That was me at 49 in Los Angeles, one lucky introduction away from never riding at all. If you’re that rider in the Springs, get on the list. I’ll be the one asking how a sea-level Harley feels at the top.
— Johnny, founder. Started at 49, rides a 2007 Harley Night Train.
Pikes Peak will take your $18 either way. The company is the part that’s missing. Free to join, and the first 500 Colorado riders wear the Wolf Pack badge for good.
Yes. The Pikes Peak Highway is paved all 19 miles to the 14,115-foot summit and open to motorcycles year-round, weather permitting. There is no motorcycle rate: adults pay $18 per person from May through November and $10 from December through April. From the Friday before Memorial Day through September 30 every motorcycle also needs a $2 timed-entry permit to go past mile 7. The limit is 30 mph, trailers are prohibited, and rangers may check brake temperatures at Glen Cove on the way down.
The Pikes Peak Highway, the Garden of the Gods loop, US-24 over Ute and Wilkerson passes into South Park, CO-67 to Cripple Creek and Victor, Skyline Drive in Cañon City, and the Frontier Pathways byway through the Wet Mountains on CO-96 and CO-165. All are paved. Phantom Canyon, Shelf Road and Gold Camp Road are not: the first two are gravel and dirt, and Gold Camp has been closed to vehicles since 1988.
Yes, and it’s free. The one-way Garden Drive and Juniper Way loop is about six miles with a 20 mph limit for every vehicle, bikes included. The park is open 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. from November through April and 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. from May through October, with the gates locked overnight. Twice a year it closes to motor vehicles until noon for a Motorless Morning; the 2026 dates were April 26 and October 4.
Yes. CO-165 and CO-78 reopened on August 7, 2026. You cross a temporary one-lane bridge with alternating traffic at mile 16.5, where the fire destroyed the original on June 30. The National Forest along the highway is closed to December 31, 2026 under a Forest Service order, Lake Isabel excepted. Bishop Castle survived; its website has not posted a reopening notice, so call ahead.
No. Riding between lanes of moving traffic is a Class A traffic infraction anywhere in Colorado. Lane filtering is legal statewide within narrow limits: a two-wheeled motorcycle may pass stopped traffic in the same lane at 15 mph or less when the adjacent lanes are stopped too and there’s room. That permission expires September 1, 2027 unless the legislature renews it.
The one standing ride confirmed on the organizer’s own site is the Pikes Peak HOG chapter’s first-Saturday meeting at Pikes Peak Harley-Davidson, with the ride leaving at 10:30 and non-members told to “just show up.” The Salute to American Veterans Rally fills Cripple Creek every August. No weekly bar bike night could be confirmed at the venue, which is the gap RideWolf is built to close: it matches you with riders in the Pikes Peak region who ride your pace. Early access is free by email.
