I was on the Evans drive Saturday night - I wasn't with the main group, as I had gone ahead so I could try to take some pictures as the everyone came up the hill.

Well I was motoring up the Evans roadway, trying to stay well ahead of the pack and keeping up a good speed, when I came across a sign saying "Road Damage". What do they mean by that I wondered WHAM.

I hit a dip, in fact a good double dip at speed (with a small amount of braking beforehand as I saw the dip come at me in my lights) and had a pretty good ride up in the air, and back down again, in time to repeat the experience once more on the second dip, though a bit slower.

Happily, even though the car hit the ground a few times rather heavily and also scraped the cowling, the car and tires and wheels were all totally fine.

The really sad part is, that I was driving that same road during the day last year and did exactly the same thing. Perhaps the third time up I'll remember to slow down a bit more in that area. I did want to let people know the MINI is quite a strong beast though!

On a side note, the drive itself was spectacular and I think quite different from the Friday night Evans drive. It had rained really heavily making all the roads rather wet, and in the distance over south Denver you could see the massive storm still raging with lightning strikes every few seconds for the entire time I was up there. As a result of all the water, there were massive banks of mist blowing in on a 50MPH wind from the surrounding hills, making it so you could hardly see one moment and the next it would all have blown away again. That continued all the way to the top, even while I was waiting around.

I got there about twenty minutes before the rest of the group, most of the pictures of them coming up did not look that great but there is a nice one of them coming around the final bend to the Evans parking lot as well as a few others up top, at the very end of my Saturday gallery:

http://gallery.mac.com/kgelner#100063

 

Kendall, YOU ROCK!
I hope your MINI doesn't suffer any complications from the encounter with road damage. Thanks for braving the elements Sat. night in 41 deg at over 14,000 ft! I especially like #5781. That's me in the foreground (shorts, sitting on the bumper) trying to get a little warmth from the idling engine. Didn't work as well as heated seats. The sky was aglow with stars, lightning, mist and more...
Rick

 

Kendall,

Thank you for taking all the wonderfull pictures this weekend.. you are the best..

Teresa

 

Great pics

 

That part of the road up was even worse this year then last. Funny, the State thought it would just rejuvenate and be all better - didn't work. Glad no significant damage.
As above, thanks for the great photos. We took so few that we are going to steal yours and put them in our family album. JK.

 

Kendall,

Great pictures, I really like the night work. One special picture was extra special, I really like #5763 of the Mini Classic and the rainbow. Nice photography. You were so busy, we did not get a chance to talk.

Don

 

You are very lucky. Its that very road last year that caused me to bend a rim, and to have some major damge to the suspention on my car. It just ate a set a tires, and will cost me around $2000 to fix. And it is NOT covered my MINI. =(

 

You would think, if they had time to put up sign, they would have time to fix the road.

 

Did you still have runflats on at the time? I was thinking that helped the tires resist the pressure...

Also I have a special bump handling technique (calling it a "dip" is kind of wrong, as it's really more of a small sharp hill in the road that is the problem rather than the dip before/after), that I think may have helped a bit - I brake as much as I can before the rise, then let off the brake and slightly accellerate to bring the nose of the car up and reduce load on the tires/suspension, then braking again after the front tires are over. I use the same technique on speed bumps or train tracks.

Thanks for the warning though, I sure don't plan to make a habit of it every year!

 

Believe me, that road would take waaaaay longer to fix that putting up a sign would! It's not just one or two bumps, but a long section of them, all in an area that looks like it probably gets flooded fairly often.

So maybe the third time up will be a charm, remembering the bumps/dips are there

 

That section was tough to traverse with a lowered Mini that has an Aero kit and splitter. I ended up having to use both lanes and crawl over some of the damaged areas and still bottomed out. Well worth it for the view.

 

Great photo's! Went up on Saturday and had a blast! Photo's were another story as all 4 were bad....

 

every so often. The issue is that each year, moisture from the lake just ahead seeps thru the ground. That is unavoidable. Then, when it freezes in the winter (early, up there) it simply does what ice does- expand. That, year after year, has made it quite a test.

It was not as bad a few years ago. Once it gets to the point where their own snowplow digs up the road, then they will fix it again.

Otherwise, there is no solution available.

JPS

 

I finally got word back from the state. It was slatted to be fixed this year but with the bad winter we had this year and so many rodes having to be fixed it was put on the back burner. There are just not enough rode paving companies to go around they are all on other jobs on roads that have to be used daily. The state will try to get it fixed sometime earley next year after they can get it open again.

Teresa