XJ-900 does the 2025 Top 'O The Rockies Rally

The BMWMOA puts on a big event every year called the Top 'O The Rockies Rally in Paonia, Colorado. I never paid much attention to it since it seemed like more of a BMW thing and I'm pretty much exclusively in the Japanese bike camp. But a buddy of mine does a lot in the BMW scene, and they claim that they don't discriminate on what you ride, so I decided to ride up with him and check it out.

The attendance was as you'd expect overwhelmingly BMWs. But there was a fair share of other brands. Probably second most I noticed was KTM. But there were at least a few of most other brands. I counted 5 Yamaha's, 3 of which were T7's, one FZR, and of course my 900 Seca. One brand conspicuously absent was Harley. There might have been a couple, but I don't recall seeing any of them. It's not that sort of crowd I guess.

I'm not sure what the final count was, but I heard someone mention they had over 500 pre-registered, and typical total attendance in years past has in around 600. Seemed on par with that.



The event takes over the Paonia City Park for 5 days (you can arrive as early as Weds). A beautiful venue with tons of huge old oak trees providing lots of shade. Only bikes are allowed in the interior drives, and they line both sides all the way around, plus a good chunk of the roads surrounding the park. Cool to see so many bikes in one place. Hats off to the locals who live around the park allowing their space to be invaded. Most seemed happy to have us there and it looked like a lot of the local kids liked hanging out in the park with all the activities going on.



The event seemed very well organized. They hired bands to play Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, and all were very good. I particularly like the Friday night group that did a lot of 80's rock. I would guess the average age at the event was mid-60's, so they had the era right for all of us "old timers".



Limited showers were available on site, or more capacity at the nearby school a couple blocks away. Even the porta-potties were emptied and scrubbed daily - an important detail that a lot of events seem to overlook.

Registration included a catered BBQ dinner on Saturday with excellent food.

There were several published rides you could take with GPS tracks available on their website and printed maps onsite, or you could do as we did and roll your own. There are plenty of scenic rides in the area, both for road bikes and dual-sport/adventure bikes. I wasn't very good at keeping track of mileage, but as I recall we did a (short) 150 mile jaunt up to Grand Mesa on Friday. The 900 ran superbly all weekend, even at altitudes of up to 12,000ft. That bike is so much fun to ride.



(continued in next post)

 

Also on Saturday was sort of a "Bike Olympics" with several skill challenges you could enter. Most required a passenger to participate, but they had several "volunteer pillions" if you didn't have one.

One where the passenger had to place a ball on each cone as the rider serpentined through them, then they turned around and had to pick them all up.



Another where the passenger tossed a water balloon over a pole and had to catch it on the other side. The balloons they used were pretty tough. I didn't see any break on the rider or passenger, and half of them didn't break even if they ended up on the ground.



One where the passenger had to hold a board with cups of water balanced on it while going through the cones again. Whoever made it back with the most water still in the cups was the winner. Really most of these were more about the skill of the passenger that that of the rider, and the poor passenger was the one that got the wettest (though I imagine it felt pretty good in the 90 degree heat).



The last event was the "slow race", where the last one to cross the finish without putting their feet down was the winner. Most of the field moved pretty fast (my buddy was the first to arrive), but there were two guys that battled it out until right before the very end when one of them finally dabbed.



I met tons of good people and it was great to listen to all the stories and experience being passed around. I felt welcome despite not having a Beemer. I even had several people stop by the check out the Seca, most of which didn't even know such a bike existed, though a few were familiar with the smaller XJs. It was definitely one of the rarer specimens there.

All in all a very fun event and I plan to be back next year.

 

Guess I missed posting one of the bike in traveling configuration. Still mad about the scar on the fairing. I really need to get that fixed. They sure are pretty bikes though.



The "tent city" of City Park.

 

Much like a "slimy crud run" event. Cool

 

Pretty good way of having a wet T competition without calling it such

 

Hence the lack of Harley attendees...