BMW MOTORCYCLE CLUB OF COLORADO

The BMW Motorcycle Club of Colorado Pass Bagger program was started in early 2002 by Brad Bolton who recruited Dennis O’Neil and Siggi Pflumm to help get it

going. They met at Dennis’ home and Brad assigned Dennis the chore of administering the program. Brad had come up with the artwork for a pin and patch and

assigned Siggi the task of getting those made. The guys also printed a booklet that contained the rules and pages on which the riders could paste the photos

they took at each pass. They publicized the Pass Bagger in the club ride book and listed some passes that folks could bag.

Siggi was the first to sign up. Dennis probably was the second. Others that signed up in 2002 were Karen Bosard, Stuart Boulter, Bob Coen, Jeff Galligan, Chris

Katsaros, Deb Lower, Gordon Meuer, Michael Rand, Joe Riddle and Tom Wise. Dennis and Joe quickly bagged 35 passes and then just went riding without taking

anymore photos to turn in. Siggi bagged a bunch of passes and took photos with an early digital camera. Those photos are still on memory cards somewhere.

The first to achieve the Pass Bagger 50 were Michael Rand and Carl Thomte in 2004. Scott Chew and Nicole Friel reached 50 passes in 2005, followed by Randy

Bishop, Jason Hinds, Jim Hoffman and Gregory Smith in 2006.

Bagging the first 50 passes was straight forward with such as Berthoud, Loveland, Hoosier, Fremont and Wolf Creek Passes. We then started reading about other

passes in Helmuth’s Passes of Colorado book and pouring over Benchmark Maps’ Colorado Road and Recreation Atlas. We weren’t sure how many of the passes

described in the book we could reach by motorcycle and what all the locations on the maps indicated by the )( “bridge abutment” symbols looked like, but away we

went.

By 2012 Carl, Randy, John Coker, Karst Postma and Paul “Shu” Shushan had bagged over 100 passes. Carl was the club president at the time and he and the

board decided that the club would begin to formally recognize those that had 90 bagged 100, 150 and 200 passes. Keren Kilgore, the club webmaster, designed

colorful logos for each of those levels. As riders bagged 100, 150 and 200 passes. Cathy Catrell obtained good quality t-shirts with the logos prominently featured on the back. Also, we posted lists of paved passes and gaps on the club web pages

to help folks get started on their Pass Bagger quests.

In February 2014 while we were still exploring around the state, several of us had a long discussion and agreed that for various reasons that passes and gaps in

Helmuth's The Passes of Colorado, gaps in the USGS GNIS database, “bridge abutments” shown in Benchmark Maps’ Colorado Road & Recreation Atlas, and high

points marked by CDOT, USFS or BLM signs would all count toward the Pass Bagger. It was a little confusing, but at the time it was workable.

In 2015 Dennis passed the administration job to Randy and gave him a very helpful and detailed spreadsheet listing all of those that had registered for the Pass

Bagger over the years.

In 2017 we added the PB250 award. Also in 2017, Cathy ordered the colorful PB50 pins, patches and mugs that are currently awarded.

Over several years we had received feedback from both new and old pass baggers requesting a simple list of passes that would count toward the Pass Bagger.

Randy’s passbagger.org spreadsheet with its 500 passes and tabs was a bit cumbersome. In the fall of 2018 five riders that had bagged 150 or more passes got

together and came up with a tentative list of passes that we could publish. After factoring in Brad Bolton’s original list, suggestions and questions from new Pass

Baggers, and additional feedback, the list was polished to include 82 paved passes, 139 unpaved passes and 32 gaps and roadway summits that were posted on the

That simplified things for both riders and the administrator who checks photos that are submitted.

By the end of 2019, of the 170+ that had registered for the Pass Bagger, 46 riders had earned the Pass Bagger 50 award, of those 46 one was at the 100 level (John

Coker), three at the 150 (Randy, Cathy, and Dave Vining), two at the 200 (Carl and Scott Westfall) and three at the 250 (Karst, Shu and John Meyer).

A number of us have joined the BMW MCC specifically so we could participate in the Pass Bagger quest. We have really enjoyed planning rides, and then traveling

the curvy and scenic roads to the mountain passes. It has also been fun to listen to other Pass Baggers as they describe the landmarks along their routes, the weather

they experienced, the challenges they might have overcome, and the views from the summits they have reached.

RB, 5/30/2020

(Thanks to Siggi Pflumm and Dennis O’Neil for sharing their memories of the

early days of the PB.)