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Motorcycle Riders Will Be Forever #BikerStrong

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Laurie Montoya, Publisher

1 year ago, we were all living in a different space with COVID shutting all our lives down.  COVID was peaking and our national and local government’s initiated mandatory shutdowns in the hopes that the shutdown would stop the spread.

I am happy to report that while many businesses have closed or will never re-open, our most of biker related businesses have found a way to survive here in Colorado and that is because of the YOU. 

It was during these times of hardship that Colorado biker businesses and riders summoned the strength and resilience that lives deep in our DNA to survive. Our biker’s business proved that no matter how often we are knocked down, we will keep getting up and get through this pandemic together. Your commitment to support biker bars thru take out orders, direct donation and continuing to wear your masks has given these businesses just enough revenue to keep their doors open. 

The challenges that biker establishments like Dirty Dogs Roadhouse and others have endured, the additional costs involved to remain compliant will take years to recover from, but 1 thing is clear…the biker community is resilient and a community of riders that stand together will forever be #bikerstrong

Colorado Rider News, the only remaining monthly motorcycle publication in our community also faced challenges, and thanks to our motorcycle advertisers and subscribers who continued to read our publication online, we too were able to weather the COVID storm and are still here today!

The future of our motorcycle events in Colorado are increasing, and slowly events are filling up our event calendar.  Dealerships, promotors, and charities who struggled thru 2020, are scheduling their annual rides and events and we ask everyone to do what you can to support them. 

In this issue we will share with our readers and update on the 2nd  Colorado Motorcycle Swap Meet held at Dirty Dogs Roadhouse in March.  We have also dedicated a portion of this month’s issue to Women riders, their upcoming events, and businesses. 

Lastly, April is also Child Abuse Awareness month and CRN was honored to touch base with Biker’s for Justice and Christian Riders MM who will both be hosting rides to bring awareness to child abuse and trafficking.

As always enjoy the ride, let us know what we can do better and BE SAFE OUT THERE

Laurie Montoya

Publisher

Colorado Rider News

info@coloradoridernews.com

Publisher, Colorado Rider News

April 11th is the last Motorcycle Expo Swap for 2021

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The last Swap meet for the Expo this year will be April 11, 2021 at Dirty Dogs Roadhouse

UPDATE: The 2nd swap meet hosted by The Colorado Motorcycle Expo and Dirty Dogs Roadhouse in March was another record crowd and the weather again shined upon our biker community.   There was a better diversity of vendors selling everything from parts to amazing riding hats.

Sadly, this will be our final swap meet of the season.  Dirty Dogs Roadhouse is the #1 biker bar for a reason and with the warm weather and beautiful weekends to ride, they need both parking lots to accommodate customers.

On behalf of all the sponsors, Scott from The Colorado Motorcycle Expo, Rider Justice, Colorado Rider News, Mark & Rob and the staff at Dirty Dogs Roadhouse, we want to THANK YOU ALL.  This modified swap meet was a testament to the pride and unity the biker community feels for each other. 

Our biker owned businesses were struggling in this pandemic as the events they heavily relied on to get them thru the winter are rescheduled, cancelled, or eliminated entirely.  We hope that these 3 months helped them get thru this tough time and get ready for any spring events they can find.

Please come out for the final swap meet on Sunday, April 11th from 10am to 4pm

Morning Stretch – Thoughts & Inspiration

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Morning Stretch
Stretch is a new inspirational writer to CRN and avid rider in the biker community

By Stretch McClue

With all the bad information from the media etc.  I feel wisdom can be gathered on your downtime.  Wisdom that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television.

Of course, bad information is gathered in your downtime too.  Bad information that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television.

One of wisdom’s greatest benefits, is accurate discernment, the learned ability to immediately tell right from wrong, good from evil, and acceptable from unacceptable.  Time well spent from time wasted.  The right decision from the wrong decision.  Many times, this is simply a matter of having the correct perspective.  One way to define wisdom is THE ABILITY TO SEE, INTO THE FUTURE, THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR CHOICES IN THE PRESENT.

That ability can give you a completely different perspective on what the future might look like…with a degree of intelligence and a hint of wisdom, most people can tell the difference between good and bad.

It truly takes a wise person to discern the oh-so-thin line between good and best and that line gives you the perspective that allows you to clearly see the long-term consequences of your choices. 

It is always about timing.  It is too soon, no-one understands.  If it is too late, everyone has forgotten.

Colorado Swap Meet in February Has Record Crowds – NEXT EVENT March 20th

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Mother nature clearly loves the biker community and on February 20th the day of our 1ST modified swap meet at Dirty Dogs Roadhouse in conjunction with Scott from the Colorado Motorcycle Expo and Rider Justice and Colorado Rider News was confirmation that that in the biker world, “If you build it….THEY WILL COME”.

Swap meets at Dirty Dogs are regularly done in June and December with great vendors everywhere, Mark can be found roasting something to satisfy the overwhelming crowd.   It was unclear to all of us that even if the weather were nice, how many attendees would come out to support the biker owned business. 

It was about 10am, that we got our answer, the parking lot was full up top, and drivers were parking on the side of Colfax all the way up past Wrigley’s.  Riders were walking around with the goods they had purchased, and you could see the guys carrying around parts to sell and parts they had bought

This modified swap meet is a testament to the pride and unity the biker community feels for each other.  Our biker owned businesses are struggling in this pandemic as the events they heavily rely on to get them thru the winter are rescheduled, cancelled, or eliminated entirely.  Scott Schultz from our Expo, Scott O’Sullivan from Rider Justice and myself met with Mark and Rob from Dirty Dogs Roadhouse to see if we could come up with an option to help these businesses, the modified swap meet was the option we all came up with that could help everyone.

The party continued long after the swap meet was over with riders and vendors staying around just to celebrate a day of normality and listening to great music.

After the event was concluded, we spoke with several of the vendor who said the swap meet was a god send, and would help them get thru the month.  Most said they would be back again in March and were so grateful for the opportunity to sell their items and make a few dollars.

If you are biker owned business and would like to participate in our March 20th swap meet, please visit the expo’s website at www.coloradomotorcycleexpo.com.  Good spots are still available

For the most updated information please go to https://www.coloradomotorcycleexpo.com/monthly-swap-meet

BikerDown’s Adopt a Family for Holidays Meets Goals with Help from Special Donor

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Adopt a Family raised over $14k for families in need!

There is nothing more stressful than the holidays for families, whether it is the COVID world that we currently live in with job layoffs, food service industry shutdowns and in-home learning requiring 1 family member to not work.   Also, the normal high cost of living in Denver and surrounding areas makes it difficult for any extras each month.  Gone are the days, when a family can put a little away every month, or the Christmas savings accounts one used to open every year to save for the holidays.  Families struggle every year to provide the kind of Christmas that all children deserve.

BikerDown Foundation saw the need in the motorcycle community 10 years ago and implemented a holiday program called Adopt A Family for the Holidays.  Since its inception BikerDown thru Adopt A Family has helped over 500 families have the resources to provide Christmas for their children.

Each family in the program receives a $250 Walmart gift card and partnered with Walmart to provide a full holiday dinner and to ensure that children have food to get them thru the New Year.  What makes our program different is they allow donors to see their donations at work by meeting with the families, reading about their circumstances and getting to personally meet them at our Dinner with Santa. 

Their goal in 2020 was to help as many families as they could but to also be realistic that everyone in our community was struggling and that donations could possibly be down this year.  Adopt A Family even limited the number of families that could apply to 40 families, from the normal 75-100.  BikerDown Adopt A Family also expanded their reach in 2019 to include the Las Vegas BikerDown chapter which each year has reached their family goals with the guidance of Shannon Venturo from Full Throttle Law & Bling Devas, MC, Cheryl from Original Sinners, MC and the Southern Nevada Confederation of Clubs.

On December 11, 2020, with 2 weeks away from Christmas, they began to get very worried that they just would not meet the goal of helping 40 families. On Wednesday, December 16, Laurie Montoya, President and Founder of BikerDown and Adopt A Family, received a phone call that she will never forget.
Michael Lord, a local Denver entrepreneur, called to adopt the last 4 families in our program. Mike then asked if there were any other families that they could help. In a matter of minutes, Mike and his co-workers adopted 10 additional families that were on the waitlist!

The program would be remiss to not recognize all the Colorado donors of this program, that each year make sure to adopt at least 1-2 families.  These biker community donors have been the back bone of our program for 10 years and Adopt a Family would not have been able to survive and increase our help without their commitment every year.  We would like to give special recognition to Scott O’Sullivan from RiderJustice.com and The O’Sullivan Law firms, Greg & Brooklyn Chmel, Art and Khris Cleveland, Derek from Ironwood Earthcare, BO Martinez, Skip Hohnhorst, Eli Ohlauser, Deborah Thomas, Kevin Maki, and all of you who attended the November Chili cook off.  You are truly a blessing to this program.

Adopt A Family will continue the mission in 2021 and we look forward to bigger and better events that will enable us to extend our reach to more and more families.


We will all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I hope you will raise your glass and join me in say FAREWELL to 2020.

Growing COVID cases leads Gov. Polis and local counties to raise to the caution level red. Changes go into affect Friday Nov 20th

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November 20th Jefferson, Arapahoe and Adams County upgrade to Level Red

COVID cases are on the rise again in Colorado and it appears that more drastic measures for citizens and business owners is coming our way this Friday, November 20th. Local health and political officials have confirmed that Jefferson, Arapahoe and Adams counties will be moving to the higher level.

What does this mean? Here are the changes that will affect all of us.

  • Elementary schools are still able to hold in-person classes and middle schools can do either in-person, a hybrid program or remote learning. But it is suggested that high schools go to hybrid or virtual learning, if they haven’t. For colleges and universities it is recommended they go to remote classes.
  • Restaurants can no longer do indoor dining, but they can still do curbside pickup and takeout. They can also do outdoor dining by limiting groups to only members of their households.
  • Last call for alcohol is moved from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. and bars remain closed.

Local groceries stores are beginning to see shoppers starting to stock up on food and other necessities as the fear of another shutdown looms in the unforseen future.

If Denver and other counties move to Level Purple restrictions, outdoor dining will no longer be allowed at restaurants, according to the new guidelines. Polis says he believes the Level Red restrictions will be effective in flattening the current coronavirus spike.

Of the newly created highest Level Purple, Hancock said, “We expect to be there.”

The state health department recorded 30,843 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, last week. It’s the sixth consecutive week that the state has recorded a record number of new coronavirus cases and reflects how infections are now at the highest level since the state had reliable data from testing.

There were 1,294 people hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 and another 130 people with suspected COVID-19, according to the health department.

Owners Mark and Rob have been modifying our beloved Roadhouse since March of this year and have prepared for this higher level by the Health Departments

Before publishing this article, I spoke with Rob from Dirty Dogs Roadhouse in Golden and Rob confirmed that Dirty Dogs will continue to stay open with outside dining, however alcohol will have to stop at 8pm from the 10pm when Jefferson County was at the Orange Level.

Adopt-A-Family for the Holidays – Nominations are open until November 30th

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Please visit our website for more information

BikerDown Foundation is in our 9th year of Adopting Families for the Holidays program.  The program started with the desire to help 2 families that had suffered a tragic loss due to a motorcycle fatality.  While we knew we couldn’t replace the loss they were feeling, we could ensure that the family wasn’t alone and that the children had Christmas under the tree.

The Adopt-a-Family program has helped almost 450 families over the years and the need for families in the Denver and surrounding areas continues to grow as rent and the cost of living increases.   In 2020 due to COVID-19, this has affected many families in ways they could not imagine.  Many parents are still not back to work, children cannot attend school and parents are forced to stay home.

As we enter the holiday season many of us begin to feel joy and excitement as we get closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas.  However, for many families in our community, they begin to WORRY about how they are going to make their children’s Christmas wishes would come true.

This year the Adopt-a-Family program is going back to our grass roots and have limited each state to 25 families to ensure that we meet our goal of fundraising.  We see this as a challenging year for all.

BikerDown with the help of Dirty Dogs Roadhouse in Golden will host a Freezin for a Reason Chili Cook off and Toy Drive on November 28th after Thanksgiving and Black Friday.  All teams are encouraged to pre-register for this event and we will have great prizes for the winners.

Adopt-A-Family has not yet determined their ability to hold the Lunch/Dinner with Santa which is where we normally distribute the gifts to the families.  We will work very hard to manage a program that meets local guidelines and continue to make the event the BEST that we can make it.

All of this wouldn’t be possible without the help of Walmart, Rider Justice, BikerDown sponsors, riders and our biker owned business supporters, each family receives a $250.00 Walmart  gift card.  Adopt-a-Family has a direct line to Santa Claus and he always comes to visit the children and bring some gifts for them.

This year we are on an aggressive fundraising effort to help over 75 families, but we need your help, if you would like to Donate to our program please visit our website at  www.adoptafamilytoday.org.  This website is also where we ask all families to request adoption.

#2Wheels4Meals distributes meals to the Hornbuckle Foundation

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One of the primary goals of Hornbuckle Foundation is to collaborate and work together with other Recovery Community Organizations and non-profits. Monarch Sober Living played a pivotal role in the success of the Hornbuckle Foundation’s sober living placement and recovery coaching program. With their experience, they helped fine tune a dream and turn it into a successful reality, by providing guidance and teamwork. 
We were approached by Rider Justice with an idea to bring meals to sober living houses through 2Wheels4Meals. The Hornbuckle Foundation had dreamed of being able to do an event like this for the last year, and 2Wheels4Meals made it happen! 

Residents of sober living are near and dear to our hearts. They are working toward achieving long-term sobriety. This journey is not for the faint of heart! Many bridges have been burned, reputations destroyed, and it can be a long road to getting back on the right track. With COVID happening, isolation has wreaked havoc on the world. This event brought people together and was a reminder that they are not alone; that the community cares about their intrinsic value and worth. They’re worth some amazing, gourmet Italian food- worth the effort to be blessed. I loved what Laurie said the best, “We see you and we are proud of you.” So many people don’t get to hear that very often, even those not in recovery. It was a special day to be a part of. We are grateful and humbled to be chosen to play our small part. 

Sarah Hornbuckle visits with the #2wheels4meals crews

#2Wheels4Meals – Interview

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April 11: This interview with Mark Miklos of Dirty Dogs Roadhouse and Laurie Montoya of BikerDown gives an update about how Dirty Dogs is doing during the COVID-19 shutdown and an information about our #2Wheels4Meals movement.

Laurie is our #2Wheels4Meals “boots-on-the-ground” person and has been at Dirty Dogs for the past three weeks helping prep meals. (Thank you, Laurie!) As the president of a non-profit, BikerDown, she has been instrumental in helping collect and manage donated funds.

Donate to #2Wheels4Meals