Colorado Conclave

Ride the Rockies, Arvada, CO, September 15-16 2007

By Jonathan Lane; photography by the author

A few years ago, I attended the Woodley Park British Car show in Los Angeles with my friend Jeffrey, he in his TR4 and me in my Austin Healey.  As we pulled out of the park to head back up the coast, I realized that the fun was just starting.  We had a hundred miles of road ahead of us in a car with no roof making wonderful music through a rusty exhaust.  It was the driving that I really enjoyed; the show was nothing more than an excuse to drive.

I was thinking about that weekend recently as I visited the Colorado English Motoring Conclave in my hometown of Denver Colorado for their annual “Ride the Rockies” tour.  The Conclave is a British car show that started almost 25 years ago that became a huge success with people coming from all over the country to participate.

Their only complaint seemed to be that there wasn’t really anything for them to do on Saturday.  The answer was “Ride the Rockies,” a 100 mile jaunt through the Colorado mountains just in time to see the aspen leaves start to change color. 

The tour started in Arvada, just north of Denver and headed west to Golden, home of the Coors brewery and its famous rocky mountain spring water. The drive up Lookout, originally known as Lariat trail is a favorite road for cyclists and sports cars alike.  It’s steep, with 56 magnificent curves rising 2000 feet into the mountains in a mere 4.6 miles.  The Denver Sports Car Club held hillclimbs up the mountain in the mid ‘50s; a time of questionable safety equipment and little common sense. 

While stopped on a backroad in Genesee, a Toyota Camry pulled to a stop behind us and a very excited woman launched herself out of the car followed by her equally energized family.  “That’s an Austin Healey!” she exclaimed “We’ve been chasing you for the past 3 miles.”  She and her husband had owned a big Healey for many years, but had sold it because of mechanical difficulties.

After leaving our fan club, things started coming apart.  A short distance up the road we saw my friend Kingsley rolling down the hill the wrong direction in a silent MGA.  We found his  battery ground wire melted after shorting out on the chassis.  A surgical splice fixed the problem and we headed up the hill where other friends were waiting with an overheated TD and a Midget that was reluctant to start.  A quick “we’re fine!” and we kept going, confident in the knowledge that we wouldn’t have problems.  This, of course, caused the smoke that was now billowing from under the hood.  It seems that a rogue wire had managed to short itself on the metal vacuum advance pipe, melting the tube which was now partially on fire, glowing red and burning my fingers.  Kingsley showed up to assist, trimming the wire and wrapping it safely in electrical tape, we decided it would be best to stick together.

We proceeded to Idaho Springs and up Squaw Pass to Echo Lake.  This is the halfway point for the ascent up Mount Evans, which at 14,130 feet is the highest paved road in America.  While we only got as high as 10,600 feet, it was enough to make the cars difficult to start so I’m quite glad we stopped there. 

From Echo Lake we continued over Squaw pass, dropping down into Bergen Park, Evergreen and Morrison; home to the famous Red Rocks amphitheater. 

The tour was a wonderful excuse to get out and exercise the car and enjoy the road. It reminds me that while our cars are beautiful, magnificent works of somewhat faulty engineering, at one time they were just transportation; a daily driver that someone drove to work or raced up Lariat trail or took his sweetheart to the top of the world to enjoy the view.  It’s nice to not worry about the occasional paint chip or dirt in the tire treads; just take them out and let them enjoy the open road.  I like to think they enjoy it as much as we do.