GS ADVENTURE

2009 f800 for sale

2010-06-23T10:56:00.002-05:00

2009 f800gs low miles, very clean!!!!

for sale my 2009 f800 gs..

Dark Magnesium Metallic Matte with Black seat

5026 miles.......................................... 1.5 years left on warranty
akropovic pipe and "new original pipe"
3 windshields
bmw large skid plate
tourtech tool box that mounts to skid plate
bmw hand guards with wind screen
hyperpro rear spring replacement
hyperpro front replacement springs
hepco and becker crash bars
BMW side cases (all keys match)
BMW top case (all keys match)
BMW side and top case mounts
headlight screen protector

heated grips
ABS
on board computer
white turn signals
center stand

This bike is very clean and never been on the ground! I took one 3000 trip and the rest to and from my office.

$12,000 firm
located in McKinney Texas near Dallas

gary@f8studio.com
214.228.5540

http://www.f8pictures.com/f800/IMG_2135%20(1).jpg
http://www.f8pictures.com/f800/IMG_2131.jpg
http://www.f8pictures.com/f800/IMG_2132.jpg
http://www.f8pictures.com/f800/IMG_2134.jpg
http://www.f8pictures.com/f800/IMG_2136.jpg
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In Search of Mammoth Springs

2010-04-04T18:12:00.015-05:00

When Saturday morning rolled around, I awoke early and I really was not feeling all that stellar. I had been battling a head cold, or allergies or something the past 10 or so days, and when I crawled out of bed around 7:45 I had a mild headache. A couple of Excedrin Migraine and a couple of Advil were my thoughts of a remedy to the situation. Along with a cup of coffee and some breakfast to absorb the pain medication and get it into the bloodstream. One of the things I am really looking forward to in my move to the Natural State is moving into my new house, apartment living is tolerable, but not something I am willing to put up with for very long. In the mean time, to save costs, a buddy of mine and I are sharing an apartment until we find our permanent residences. Gill works the night shift and got home around 7:30, when I got up his stomach was grumbling and he said “lets go eat breakfast at Front Page Café”. I threw on a hat and some shoes, took the dog out so he could embark on his continual quest of marking the territory he as claimed relentlessly since he landed upon these shores about three weeks ago, and Gill and I headed out to the restaurant made famous in Jonesboro for flying rolls, free okra, and chocolate gravy (yes… chocolate gravy - I haven’t quite built up the nerve to try that yet). $3.99 = 2 eggs, bacon, & biscuits and gravy, now that is a right priced breakfast. It did the trick, my headache was gone, and I had one hell of a caffeine buzz between the Excedrin and the coffee as Gill will probably attest because I don’t think I shut up once during breakfast, but I still was not feeling quite right. Rain had quietly meandered its way through the area over night, but it was clear by the time I got up, and we were supposed to have beautiful weather all weekend. My intention was to mount up and ride, I had no idea where, but to get out and burn up some miles. But I just could not seem to get going, my head kind of in a foggy daze, my body lethargic, I could not think 10 feet in front of me. After a shower and milling around for the next couple of hours I decided that I needed to just get moving, to get some air circulating around me, out of the apartment and get my blood moving. The activity did me wonders. As I am currently keeping my bike in a storage facility, just getting to it takes a little planning and involvement, and by the time I got situated and on the bike my head was clear as a bell and I was focused and ready to ride. My blood was flowing.

I headed north on hwy 49 towards Paragould. My plan then was to start heading west and as the Ozarks are west, “head west beemer biker dude” and see if I would end up in the mountains. It started getting hilly as I got closer to Paragould, but I think this is still part of Crowley’s Ridge. So when I got to Paragould, I took hwy 135 to 34 west, I was going to make my way towards a town called Delaplaine. I really had no idea where Delaplaine was, what it was like, if it was in the mountains, or in the middle of a rice field, just saw it on a map once and that it was west of Paragould. So unknown adventure got the better part of me and off I went in search of Delaplaine. Hwy 34 was actually a pretty nice road between Oak Grove Heights and a little one tractor settlement called Beach Grove. I found a few dirt roads / county roads breaking off the main road that had the appearance of holding some future interest. I took one of them that made its way into a wildlife management area. I winded through tress that were just starting to sprout their summer plumage, undulating slightly through the terrain with nothing so challenging that a car really could not drive on it, other than the fact that it was a bit muddy due to the rain the prior night. But it was fun, a couple of rough spots where I would have to stand on the pegs, but just what the doctor ordered, assuming the doctors prescription pad said BMW R1200GS on it. The road broke off in a couple of areas that looked a little more interesting, but quite a bit slushier due to the rain soaked ground, and I did not pursue them – at least not until I get some knobbies. At the end of the road was a public firing range. Something I did not expect. I guess that is one thing my state taxes are going towards. No place to fire a shotgun, or not that I saw anyway, but for a handgun or rifle, you don’t have to pay. At least not that I saw. I made my way back to the main road and found more twists and turns until I got to Beach Grove.

Then I was back in the delta. It was flat land rice fields all the way to Delaplaine and beyond. At Delaplaine, there was a T in the road, I really did not know which way to go, so I took hwy 90.

Flat and straight… Straight and flat….

Rice fields.

Through Walnut Ridge and Hoxie – a couple of junk yard towns, a couple of one grain tower towns, and one farm that had a whole bunch of nice new equipment along the way.

When I hit Walnut Ridge I was getting hungry, I started to look for a place to satisfy that grumbling in my belly, but it wasn’t until I found the Ole Hickory BBQ in Hoxie that my search ended. “You want slaw on that” the waitress asked as I ordered my barbeque beef sandwich. I asked for it on the side, along with some fries. I guess anyone who has been in this area knows that they put the cold slaw on the sandwich around here. I have not had my BBQ sandwich like that yet, but I did do my own make-shift “slaw-on-the-wich” sandwich as I was having my lunch this sunny Saturday afternoon. Not bad I have to tell you, I may not object the next time the waitress asks me if I want slaw on that. My first barbeque experience in Jonesboro was not really all that great – I’ll spare the name of the restaurant because I like some of their other food… but my subsequent BBQ experiences in the area have been pretty good, especially the dry rubbed ribs in Memphis, but that's another story. After making my exit from Ole Hickory, I decide to reference the GPS, enough flat-lander riding for me, I figured I had circumnavigated the Jonesboro Delta area now as Hoxie is only about 15 to 20 minutes or so northwest of Jonesboro on hwy 63. I just punched up “cities” on the GPS and saw Black Rock. I knew from my last trip that Black Rock was where the foot hills started and the roads started winding. I figured I would get to Black Rock and just start picking roads from there. So, I hit the road jack, and figured I come back for more flat later.

As I spun the wheels down the now familiar pavement towards Black Rock and beyond to Hardy things got better, Black Rock was just a quick ride from Hoxie and the tarmac started is satisfying distortion of twists and turns. There was a red Dodge Stealth in front of me and the driver was on the same page as I was in regards to making the most of the road. We would get stuck behind a truck or some slow poke out for a Sunday stroll on a Saturday afternoon and simultaneously take advantage of any passing opportunities as soon as they made themselves present. The Dodge was keeping about a 90MPH pace which was just fine with me, I stayed a few feet behind and really did not feel the need to pass, I enjoy going fast, but for the most part 80 to 90 is plenty to keep my need for speed satisfied – in most cases. Once we had a clear passing lane though, I did overtake the Stealth around a sweeping turn marked 50. 115 seemed like about the right speed to get the bike to really start to lean into the turns and accelerate out. It was a blast. I did not see too much of the Stealth driver after that, I’m not sure if he thought he was keeping up with me before and just gave up, or if I pissed him off, or if he just had enough. About 15 miles later, he turned off the road. I was actually having fun riding with him when I was behind him, guess I should have stayed there, oh well – everyone has their own idea of fun, and mine just happened to be 115 around that particular set of climbing turns.

Right before entering Hardy, there was a sign pointing right to Mammoth Springs. I knew that the sign meant to take 63 north, but there was a dirt road right there, so I took it thinking “hmm, maybe I can take all dirt roads to Mammoth” as I head down the road it stared winding along a river. I’m thinking to myself that this is starting to remind me of a mini Colorado, and I am loving it. After a few minutes of traveling down this road, I pulled up Mammoth Spring on the GPS and sure enough, it told me to keep going straight on the road I was on. The road was fun, again nothing too challenging, but something you could ride a good 25 –30 MPH on when piloting a big GS. Stand on the pegs a few times, slow down a bit on some of the tight turns, no water crossings but a few muddy spots from the rain. All the fun ended when the road completed itself into intersecting pavement at hwy 175. The GPS told me to go south on 175, so south on 175 it was. While a little disappointed that the dirt ended, it was treated to a bit of pavement that snaked it way through trees, mountains, and open meadows dotted livestock. It was a great little dual sport jaunt, I can only imagine how many more of these mini adventures await me on future explorations. And I am just now hitting the very eastern edge of the Ozarks! I keep thinking knobbies, but I really don’t want to miss out on some of the pavement these mountains have to offer either. My Anakees have always served me well, even through some really rough stuff in Colorado, and I have a brand new set in waiting – decisions, decisions.

After an exhilarating run down 175, I was eventually dumped back off on hwy 63, right in front of where I hit the dirt road. A big dual-sport circle and worth every single minute of the side track from the ride to Mammoth Springs. Back on the road, I took 63 North towards Mammoth Springs. I was pleasantly surprised again, as the road immediately winded its way through what looks like was where it had been cut through a canyon of sorts. Again reminding me of Colorado, or parts of Big Bend country. 63 North towards the Missouri boarder was even better than between Black Rock and Hardy. The distance between Hardy and Mammoth Springs is about 30 miles and the entire distance is picturesque and well worth it to anyone on two wheels.

Mammoth Springs is situated on the boarder of Arkansas and Missouri, I did not stay long, but there is a state park there and several campgrounds. The spring river runs through the area and I checked out one of the campgrounds along the river. I met one of the campers at the campground who had several interesting stories to share. I spent some time taking to Ralph and then started to make my way back home. The ride home was a retrace of the road there, but interesting none the less, it is amazing how different something looks when you go the opposite direction. At least until you get to the flat lands east of Black Rock. But by that time I had completely forgot about how bad I felt earlier that morning. Excedrin, Advil, Coffee, Breakfast, they all tried, but getting out and getting some air around me, getting some miles under my arse, and two wheels turning under my feet, ultimately that is what I needed to cure whatever it was that was ailing me this beautiful Saturday.

First Arkansas Adventure

2010-03-21T12:40:00.005-05:00

There are times that life can be cruel. There are times that life can be great. There are times that life can appear to be cruel but be great in disguise. I’m not sure which it is some of the time, maybe a little of both mixed up in a big brown bag and shaken up into a recipe that culminates in a tasty sensation you weren’t quite expecting. I guess this is why the English language has the word “bitter-sweet”, why the Chinese have Ying-Yang, and ultimately why so many of us like roller coaster rides. You really can’t live life without a little difficulty and you find out you enjoy it more when you have to struggle a bit to achieve that enjoyment.

I will get to my first Arkansas mini motorcycle adventure here in a minute, but first I need to explain exactly how a born and bred Texan got to Arkansas in the first place;
I have worked at the same printing plant for 32 years. The first few days of November 2009, an announcement wasn made that our facility would be closed by December 31, 2009. Without getting into details, it is a volume vs. capacity issue in the printing industry – and its not over yet. Over the next few months, I was offered and accepted a job at our Jonesboro AR division. I went through a lot of stress and angst as whether or not to take the job, whether or not to leave where I have lived my entire life, to leave all of my friends and family. There were financial issues of selling my home, which I had just bought a year earlier, buy a new home in Arkansas, all of those issues. One thing that made it easy was I liked the Jonesboro plant, and the people in the plant and town were some of the friendliest I had ever met. This was literally the toughest decision I have ever made in my life. Especially the part about leaving everything behind and heading to Arkansas by myself, just me and my dog. I don’t have a huge circle of friends, but the ones I do have are close and have helped me more than they are probably aware. So to say the least, my move was bittersweet. I was sad to be leaving, but excited to be heading out on a new life adventure. I left Dallas and arrived in Jonesboro the weekend of March 6th 2010. A transplanted Texas boy in the heart of Northeast Arkansas.

It was my second weekend in Arkansas, I had the bike out around town last weekend, but I needed to get out and put some natural state miles under the tires. My realtor and a couple of others had said that there was little historic town called Hardy AR that was a destination for a lot of the bikers in Jonesboro. So, what would anyone needing information about a destination today do…. I googled it. Google said it was about an hour and a half away, but my GPS said about an hour. GPS was right, BTW. I headed out around noon up hwy 63 towards the northwest. The road was pretty flat and straight for the first 30 miles or so. Lots of Harley riders in these parts, I guess they are okay with that, but I was starting to think it was going to be a boring ride. Then I hit a little town called Black Rock, just past the Spring River. Finally there was some topography getting into the act and the road started winding a bit. One thing I have to say about this part of the country. They do have trees; even the flat lands have grand stands of tall trees and forests. A lot of them have been cut back for Uncle Ben and his rice farming ventures, but they are there and they are plentiful. The tress started to line the sides of the road more prevalent as I made my way northwest of Black Rock. It reminded me a little of Colorado, well maybe the foothills. The countryside was dotted with a lot of the same roadside junkyards guised as antique shops – American Pickers would have a field day in some of these spots. Being winter yet, there wasn’t any foliage on the tress yet, but I could only image what this ride will be like in a month or two. What amazed me was all of the river access roads to the Spring River. Each of the little towns had its own public access road to the river. I think I will need to get a little boat, canoe, or kayak.

When I was first considering moving to this area, someone told me that Jonesboro had a lot of industry move in and that it had lost a lot of the small town charm some of the other towns in the area had. I saw a lot of that character in the towns I rode through on the way to Hardy. Most of the towns only had populations between 500 and 2,000, so the charm was definitely there. Little post offices, churches, and grocery stores. I did not stop in any of them on this trip, but will probably do so the next time I go, after the trees sprout some leaves and everything is a little more picturesque, this trip I mainly wanted to ride. The road started winding a little more the closer I got to Hardy, but not to the point I would call it a twisty. Maybe if I rode it a little faster, but Johnny Law was making his presence evident quite a bit this Saturday afternoon so I kept it to within 10-15MPH of the legal limit. It will be interesting to see if I can find an alternate route to Hardy other then just straight up hwy 63, something that may take a little longer to get there, but something that may add a little more interest to the tarmac. The scenery was great though, even with barren trees, rolling winding roads on a main thoroughfare is something that is just not an every day occurrence that I am used to and it was quite welcome.

I arrived in Hardy right around 1PM, just behind a blue Goldwing. We both parked next to each other, and the first thing they did was look to see where I was from. “Texas?” they said. I told them that I was, but had just move to Jonesboro. We talked for a while and they went into one of the antique shops. Hardy is mostly antique shops, a couple of restaurants and some pretty cool old buildings. I guess their claim to fame is that the Wilburn Brothers were born there. The Wilburn Brothers were famous Country singers from around the 50’s to the 70’s, and are credited for launching the career of Loretta Lynn. I spent a little time walking around the main street of the town, shot a few images, ate lunch and then headed back towards Jonesboro around 2PM.

On the way back I took advantage of heading down a couple of the gravel roads I found and some of the river access roads I found on the way up. These will certainly be more interesting once summer gets here, and maybe when I have a little more time. It was partly cloudy and warm, but there was supposed to be rain moving in later in the afternoon/evening and I did not want to get to deep down some dirt road and have it turn to mud on me, so I kept the excursions fairly short. However they were enough that I can tell there will be some fun to be had on the GS. I may just end up getting those knobbies after all. All of the little side trips on the way home added about an hour to my ride home and I got to Jonesboro around 4PM. I then spent a little time riding around the south part of town. Rode by where I bought my new house, and then found where they opened up a new ATV/Motorcycle park just north of Craighead Forest Park. So I now have a place right here in town to ride my dirt bike. I’m not quite sure how big it is yet, but I stopped and talked to some of the guys and they said they thought it was about 7 miles…. Not sure if that meant 7 sq miles, 7 miles of trails, or what….

So that is my first Arkansas adventure. I can already tell that there will be more to come. The sweet part of the bittersweet move is that I will be closer to all kinds of outdoor adventures. On a simple 1-hour ride I can’t tell you how many rivers, streams, creeks and forest access roads I passed. It is just a matter of time before I find out how to get to these and the outdoor fun begins. And those are just the ones in my back yard. An hour or two to the west and I am in the Ozarks, and more adventure and opportunity awaits. So I am going to shake up that brown paper bag and see what kind of recipe for adventure pours out.

The Daily Riders

2009-10-25T10:33:00.003-05:00

I don’t know that I would necessarily consider my daily 9 mile commute from home to work an adventure, nor the slightly different route taken home anything worthy of blogging about. This short passage of time is infinitely more enjoyable on my motorcycle than it is in my truck, but day-in, day-out there is really nothing that lodges itself onto the synaptic nerves and forever in my memory. On thing that does make an impression on me are the other daily riders whom I work with. There are a lot people who ride their bikes to work, from time to time – and some more than others. But there are 4 “Daily Riders”, four of us who pretty much ride just about every day we are at work weather permitting – or not… About the only thing I have noticed that keeps one of the four of us away is rain, snow, or if one of us has to drive because we need our alternate vehicle for some other purpose that day. For the most part you can figure that the motorcycle parking area is going to happily accommodate two Honda scooters, a Harley and a Beemer.

That’s right – two of the daily riders are scooters. So any of you out there who do not think the scooter crowd are not hard-core riders, think again. They may not be riding cross-country, but from the since of riding every day, and in just about all weather I can tell you that the oldest most beat up bike of all of the daily riders is Perry’s Honda scooter and he probably wears the crown of the daily riders. That bike is pretty much out there, rain, shine, 115 degrees or 15 degrees. The other day was one of the coolest so far this year. For some reason Perry did not ride. He saw me in the hall and told me that when he saw my bike that morning he thought “oh shit, Eddie’s gonna think it was too cold for me to ride this morning”. I just told him that he was more hard-core than any of us.

The other scooter is a little lady on her yellow Honda Metro. For some reason we tend to pull into the parking area around the same time a lot of mornings. Her from the south side, me from the north, so I get to watch her leaning her yellow machine around the corner into the parking lot in what can only be described in a cute, no-nonsense sort of way.

Warren is the Harley rider, and he works in the maintenance shop. Like most Harley riders he has customized his bike and takes a lot of pride in it. Unlike a lot of Harley riders, he rides his almost every day, not just on the weekends. Warren is one of those lucky guys who works a 3-day week, so you may not see is Harley in the parking lot every day, but if it is one of the days he is working, you can pretty much bet it will be there.

So here’s to all 3 of my fellow daily riders. Enjoy your daily adventure. My 18 daily miles may not be as much fun as it was when it was 60 miles each day, but I know that there are at least 3 others I share the parking lot with that are enjoying the ride.

jump

2009-10-07T20:52:00.005-05:00

I get up, and nothing gets me down.
You got it tough. I've seen the toughest soul around.
And I know, baby, just how you feel.
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real
Oh can't you see me standing here,
I've got my back against the record machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen.
Oh can't you see what I mean ?

Might as well jump. Jump !

Might as well jump.

Go ahead, jump. Jump !

Go ahead, jump.

Aaa-ohh Hey you ! Who said that ?
Baby how you been ?
You say you don't know, you won't know
until you begin.
Well can't you see me standing here,
I've got my back against the record machine
I ain't the worst that you've seen.
Oh can't you see what I mean ?

Might as well jump. Jump!

Go ahead, jump.

Might as well jump. Jump!

Go ahead, jump. Jump!

An August Ride

2009-09-02T08:55:00.018-05:00

Over the last couple of months, I have guided our buddy Rego on some of the better North Texas county roads. He is definitely destined to be a seasoned adventure, and is clearly demonstrating improved skills on his R1150GS Adventure. There is no substitute for experience and practice on a motorcycle to develop the needed instinct while riding, so we went on a couple of long local rides. Here are some images taken last month when we motored toward the hill country and back.

We ate breakfast at Mary's on the Brazos in Tin Top Texas.

After the excellent morning chow, we motored south on 4, 1188, 1189, to enjoy the twisties on 51. Near the intersection of 51, and 67, we paused.

Rego, describing his appreciation for Gatorade.

We continued on through Lipan, Bluff Dale, Walnut Springs, and stopped in the town of Iredell to take pictures of old buildings.

We continued heading south, and paused in Cranfills Gap to fill up with gas and hydrate. After reviewing the time, and consulting our trusty iPhones for weather predictions, we decided to target Gatesville for the next stop.

We stopped at a McD's in Gatesville to cool off, and devise a plan for the return ride. I suggested we just retrace our route, and Rego agreed.

On the return, we paused again in Cranfills Gap to check out The Horny Toad. It's an old feed store converted into a bar and grill. Although I have only enjoyed an ice cold carbonated beverage there, many have indicated the food is good.

With the clock ticking, and the decision to have dinner in Granbury we motored off to Walnut Springs for another break.

Just as we suiting up to hit the road, I noticed my R100GS ticked over to 18K miles. This bike runs like a champ.

We headed North on 203, with dinner in Granbury on our minds. On of the last set of twisties as the road nears the interesection of 67, Rego went wide on a turn. After brushing himself off, he described to incident.

We inspected his bike, and determined it was unscathed, so we continued on to Granbury for some dinner, and a cold drink. After a run North on 51, we pulled into the main square in Granbury, and located a TexMex joint with a porch.

With a cool breeze flowing through the porch, a refreshing amber beverage, and the consumption of some tasty fajitas, we concluded it was an excellent days advenure.

Wait ! ... there's more.
And of course, I captured some video of a couple of the roads. Enjoy the shows.

Rocky Ridge

2009-08-30T15:49:00.004-05:00

They say God created the universe and the earth in 6 days and then rested on the 7th day. I guess he created Rocky Ridge on the following Monday because from what I understand, it has been there since the beginning of time. It has been well since the beginning of time that I first rode out at Rocky Ridge, but I guess that’s because I was born about 4 billion years too late and, well – because I did not have a dirt bike until a couple of months ago. I’ve ridden my R1200GS out there before, but it was to muddy for me to really do much, and since I got my XT350, that has been my mount of choice for these types of excursions. The past few weeks Gary and I have made our way out to what has become my off-road park of choice.

On our first trip out there we met Oliver who had just purchased a BMW F800GS and was trying it out in the dirt. The next weekend, we met up with Oliver again, and a few other folks he had put together via Adventure Rider for a dual sport ride out at Rocky Ridge. Unfortunately, due to the untimely demise of my brake handle, we were not able to meet up for riding with the group that weekend, but this past weekend, there was a small group from ADVRider that met out at Rocky Ridge. Oliver started the post, and about 5 of us chimed in that we would all meet at the ranch about 15 mile north of Decatur between 8:30 and 9:00. With the exception of me, who hauled my bike (because it is not quite street legal at this point in time…) everyone rode their dual sports out to the ranch. Oliver on his F800, fully loaded for a “shake down” cruise getting ready for a camping trip in Arkansas next weekend, Scott and his dad Jeff, on their Kawasaki KLX 250 S’s, Cris on his recently acquired Yamaha WR250R, and my on my beat up old Yamaha XT350 (the prettiest bike of them all….). As I was unloading the beauty from the hitch mount MX hauler, I noticed the 4 other bikes ride by and head off in the direction of the only spot at the ranch that could possibly resemble an MX track (sort of…). A couple minutes later I headed that way, and when I noticed nobody there I found the group at the gravel pits. Erosion is an amazing thing, just two weeks earlier, Gary and I had found a little climb at the gravel pits that we could hit and easily jump the bikes, maybe 3 or 4 feet in the air, nothing great by any standards – but a fun little jump that you did not have to hit very fast. Two weeks later, same jump, same speed and it had been worn down so much that I could barely get the rear tire off the ground. After meeting up with the group at the gravel pits, we stopped, talked for a while and then headed off towards the lake. There was a little flat track area just below one of the hill climbs that goes up through the trees. This was a fun little spot that you could get the bikes up to a decent speed. After that we followed Oliver to a part of the ranch I had never been. Oliver and Cris had been there a few weeks ago when Cris was out on his R1200GS. It was a whole other interesting part of Rocky Ridge, and while we would come back and visit the Rock Gardens later in the day, it left me intrigued and ready for more exploration of this yet uncharted area. After finding another little jumping area, we headed back towards some of the single track trail sections. Rocky Ridge has some really good trail riding. Challenging enough to add interest, but not so much so that it destroys any semblance the enjoyment you had envisioned when setting forth on the trail. After meandering our way through the woods, between rock outcroppings, over logs, and across dry creek beds, we made our way back to where I had parked my truck and stopped under a shade tree to take a little break. The weather was fantastic, by this time it was approaching 10:30 or so, it was barely over 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky and gentle breezes were making random appearances for the sole purpose of making great weather even better.

After a brief break, we mounted up and headed back out to the Rock Garden. To get to this area there is a downhill road that breaks off of the main road, I find it kind of fun because there are a couple of little bumps as you are heading downhill, you can pop the throttle just a little as you hit these bumps and launch your bike in the air just a bit as you make your way down the hill – yeah, silly I know, but for some reason I find that fun so I thought I would put it down in writing for all of internet blog cyberspace eternity… (A thousand years from now some AI Cyborg will read this, bust his mechanical ass trying to do it, and need to have his flux capacitor replaced – I’ll be laughing my long gone dead ass off.) There is a little bit of trail riding before you get to the Rock Gardens, but once you get there, you know why they call it the rock gardens. Oliver was in front, Cris was behind him, I was behind Cris and Scott and Jeff were behind me. Oliver went up a fairly steep incline and stopped at the top. Cris took a path to the left, Scott, Jeff and I stopped and waited for Oliver to start moving again at the top of the hill before making the climb ourselves. This was a pretty rocky section and we waited at the top for everyone to make it through. Afterward, we all made our way down the boulder ridden path. I’m not sure what happened, but by the time Oliver and I had made our way through the rocks and back down the hills, we seemed to have lost the others in the group. We stopped at the crossroads that headed back to where we had parked, but after about 10 minutes decided we had better head back up the hill to see if we could find the others. We headed back up, and at one point where we had made a sharp right downhill turn we thought the rest of the group might have gone straight along the path. So we ventured that direction.

After the terrain had leveled out in a few hundred yards. Oliver stopped his bike and said something did not seem right with the gears, he said he was in 2nd, but the bike shifted to neutral, and then to 1st. We played around with it a little and once we determined that nothing appeared to be broken, decided to try and ride it again to see if it would shift. After a couple hundred more yards, it still would not shift. We worked on it some more and decided to go back to my truck where I had some tools, and had the number for BMW Roadside Assistance in my cell phone. The ride back was a bit slow as it was a 1st gear ride for the F800. After we got back to the truck, the rest of the crew was already there and waiting in the shade. We worked on the bike a bit and determined that there did not appear to be anything mechanically wrong. A call to the service department of the dealership, confirmed that the most likely culprit was a sensor in the transmission. Oliver then started his ordeal of calling Roadside Assistance. In the end, I think it all worked out smooth, but I think there were a couple of numbers – it was just a matter of getting the right number to call. We went on a quick ride while Oliver waited for the towing company, and then everyone headed for home. As I was the only one with a truck, I waited around until the tow truck got there just to make sure Oliver got picked up. Hopefully the dealership will have the 800 up and running for his trip to AR next weekend.

Other than the gear sensor on the 800, it was a really great ride out a Rocky Ridge. I met some new people to ride with, two of them are heading to Big Bend in October, and another wants to go the next time Gary and I head down. So, there are common interest even outside of Adventure Motorcycles. Small world, even if it did only take 6 days to create.

More Images from the Colorado Trip

2009-08-12T22:39:00.001-05:00

I Posted more images from the Colorado trip. Click HERE to see them.

Colorado July 2009 - Part 3

2009-07-28T18:51:00.018-05:00

(for more images from this trip click HERE)

Sunday, July 26, 2009
Estes Park CO

It had rained Saturday night so we decided to sleep in until around 8:30 or so on Sunday to let things dry out a bit. An amusing breakfast of huevos rancheros served with flour tortillas instead of corn, and we headed back to Bills Hacienda by the river to determine the days riding itinerary. One of the thoughts was to ride up the Old Fall River Road again, Gary really liked that ride other than the auto traffic, and Bill and I would have liked to get another picture of the bikes at the top to complement the two from ’07 and ’08. Mother Nature seemed to be hinting us in the other direction this Sunday morning however, as the skies over the continental divide did not look inviting. The more appealing heading was towards the Cache La Poudre River and Stove Prairie Road. When riding Stove Prairie in the past, there was a dirt road that broke off towards the southwest that Bill and I had always wanted to take. The Honda was simply not up to the task, so this venture had always been forgone. Not this time. As the Goddess of the Earth was directing us away from the park and it’s pavement, we decided to heed her advice and explore this pathway built of more natural materials. When we got back to the house Gary had decided that after 7 solid days of riding, and a 800 – 900 mile ride planned for the ride home tomorrow, that he was going to forego today’s ride and sit back and enjoy the surroundings of Bills house. I can’t say I blame him. I have been to Bills several times, and have had plenty of opportunities drink a few beers, kick back on the porch, hang out by the river, and just enjoy something we do not get a lot of chances to do living in an urban outcropping of streets, buildings, and concrete.

The ride started off great, what better way to get to a riding location than to burn up the twisting, curling, hairpin turns of Stove Prairie Road. The road that broke off was Pennock Pass, it was mostly grated gravel, but was very scenic. Nothing a car could not drive on and nothing GS could not travel comfortably at 30 to 40 MPH (easily faster if you wanted to). We kept finding all of these trails that would break off of the main road and head up the mountain, we took off on one of them only to find that it was the entrance to a ranch, so around we turned. At on point, we saw a dirt bike coming back down one of the trails; we summoned him over to converse for a moment. He said it climbed for about 7 miles and then came back down. We asked if we could take our GS’s up the road and he said “sure, why not”. That is one thing I find that is quite subjective. Until you ride it yourself, you really do not know to trust what someone is telling you or not. If they tell you no, it is to rough for a 500 lb motorcycle and then you merrily make your way up the mountain, they fear you will think they are a wimp. If they tell you, sure you can take that bike up there, they are insinuating that “they” could do it, because “they are a bad-ass”. It’s still good to ask, but you just have to realize that the info you get is relative. As this particular road goes, the guy said that it was not really a jeep trail, by that I assume he meant that it was because it was so narrow. It was a very fun trail. More difficult than Last Dollar, not as difficult as Crystal River, and probably just a tad bit easier than Pierson Park. It seemed to have a little more sand with some rocks mixed in, and several more whoops as it climbed through the trees at a pretty decent incline. There were a few narrow switchbacks, the nemesis of the 1200… but I seem to manage them all right as long as I took them wide and kept my momentum up. I was handling the trail really well, and Bill was following behind me about 50 or so yards behind. As I was climbing a steep part of the trail, up ahead it appeared that the trail was shifting to the left, there was a rocky wash in the center of the track, so I shifted to the right side to approach the left turn at a good angle. When I got to the turn, to my sudden realization the trail bore quickly to the right across an outcropping of waist high boulders. The boulder outcropping was not an obstacle that couldn’t have been easily overcome; it could have been fairly easily avoided by maneuvering to the left. However the approach would have had to been made from the left side of the trail, not the right – and I of course was on the right. By the time I saw this devilish outcropping, I did not have time to make a judgment call. I was already fairly hard on the throttle, so I picked a spot I thought was the path of least resistance and gassed it. You could see the two-foot long tire mark in the dirt where I hit the throttle, evidence that led to my demise. I am quickly learning that this big GS is a pretty amazing bike, but I guess there are just some things that it is not meant to do unless it is being piloted by the likes of Jeremy McGrath. Crossing a waist high boulder field is probably something this bike was not designed to do under a rider of my skill level, not yet anyway… As I momentarily lay there under my 500 lb dirt bike, Bill came riding up, thinking exactly the same thing I did, that the trail went to the left, he went to the left, saw me laying there, tried to stop suddenly and put his foot down. When he did he fell victim to the age old “no ground under the foot” syndrome, and down went the 650. His first drop, laughing the whole time – a virgin no more. No damage to the 650 and damage to the 1200 was minimal, a broken hand guard, and a loosened side view mirror (very cleverly designed by BMW by the way). Mirror easily fixed, and hand guard easily removed on the trail. Trail repairs/removals were made among evidence of prior mishaps, judging by all the bits of broken glass and plastic embedded in the ground and dirt at that particular corner. Afterward, we made our way back towards Pennock Pass as it looked like the afternoon showers were starting to threaten to make their appearance. After getting back on the main road, we finally hit the pass itself. I have to say that Pennock Pass is a really fun dirt/gravel road, not in the off-road trail riding sense, but more of an off-road race type sense. The road is an auto road for certain, but it has a rather steep grade over several switchbacks, under the guard of giant pine trees that refuse to change seasons because they are in the constant view of the Never Summer Mountains. You can race up these steep inclines only to slow down on the gravely switch backs to shift your way through the gears again in the straight-a-ways to the next switchback, all the way to the summit at around 9,200 ft (have to check the GPS for the exact elevation). The road reminded me a lot of Old Fall River, only without all of the traffic.

After the Pass, we turned right to go the 12 miles to the Poudre Canyon as opposed to the 4 miles left to Pingree Park. Once we hit Hwy 14 more fun was to be had. I had rafted the Cache La Poudre a few times before, but have never been this far up river. THIS is the part of the river we needed to be rafting, the Poudre River in what they call the Lower Narrows is magnificent, it squeezes into canyons that are a kayakers paradise and then broadens into breadths that are a fly fisherman’s wet dream. All of this on a road that convertibles, motorcycles, and bicyclist call home to tell mama about. And we saw them all, I believe the Colorado State motto is “Nothing Without Deity”, but they need to change it to “Outdoorsman’s Paradise”

But wait, it’s not over yet… As we exited Pennock Pass in the Poudre Canyon well above Stove Prairie, we got to ride Stove Prairie back to 34, and then the canyon back to Bill’s house. I won’t continue about S.P any longer, I think by now you get the drift, however the ride up the canyon was rather interesting. Bill knows this canyon; he drives it twice a day, to and from work. There were a couple of Harleys in front of us, nothing against Harleys, but they tend to be a little slow – enjoying the scenery. We thought the two we together and as a passing lane approached we passed one, but the other decided he was going not going to be passed and gave it some throttle. I have to say he was moving pretty good for a Harley. He looked like “The Gentleman” from the movie “Hell Ride”, jacket open and flying, arms up, but this bike was shaking in the corners as he was trying to stay ahead of Bill. It probably did not help matters much that I was standing on my pegs the whole time as we winded our way through the canyon, but after about 150 miles of riding, probably 70 of it on dirt, I had to stretch and the canyon was a perfect place to do that. Eventually we passed The Gentleman and continued our way back to Bills, a last day of Estes Park area under our belts. By this time Bill had 601 miles on his new GS, time for the 600 mile service and ½ of those miles off-pavement. A perfect way to break in a brand new GS.

Monday July 27, 2009
Estes Park, CO – Plano, TX / McKinney, TX

I’m not sure what constitutes an “iron butt” ride. I think technically it is supposed to be 1,000 miles in a single day. We did not do that, but anybody can get on an interstate and burn up 1,000 miles in a single day fairly easily. We did 865 miles in 16 hours, but they were miles with a purpose, they were miles planned out not with the intent of burning up miles, but with the intent of getting from point A to point B. The route was chosen based on past experience as the most scenic, yet most direct route that allowed us to bypass rush hour traffic in any of the major cities we had to travel through. I had made this route several times before, but never in a single day. On past rides I had always stopped in Childress TX, about 650 miles or so from Estes Park. Our original intent had been to do the same, stop somewhere along the way and arrive home, today – Tuesday July 28, 2009, some time before noon. A few days ago, Gary had proposed we ride straight through. Based on making the ride in past years I knew I could have easily made Wichita Falls, another 100 miles or so past Childress, but figured if I did that I may as well just go all the way home since Wichita Falls is only a couple of hours from home. So I always just stopped in Childress and made an easy ride home the next day. Gary proposed riding straight through for a couple of reasons. One, his wife needed to go to work the following day, so he kind of needed to get home on Monday instead of Tuesday, and 2, for the adventure of it. I’m always up for the adventure part of it, and I was ready to beat my record of 650 miles so the decision was chipped away in stone. We sat up Sunday night watching Jesse James bust his ass trying to ride a KTM across the desert, packed up the bikes and said our goodbyes to Bill (he wasn’t getting up that damn early to run down the street waving us bon voyage…). 5:00 rolled around as early as it had the entire trip, and we had the Beemers fired up and rolling down the crushed granite driveway at 5:15 sharp. The ride down the mountain road of hwy 36 in the early morning light was a very crisp 42 degrees. We made our way along 36 through Boulder to Table Mesa where we picked up 93/6 until we hit C470 to I-25. We did not stop until we got onto I-25, where we stopped at a Starbucks for some coffee and a quick breakfast. We made really good time on I-25, running at speeds that were likely exceeding the limits as the officer parked on the side of the road was seemingly indicating as he tapped his brake lights when I flew past. I heeded his advice for a while, and we continued our way to Raton. Nourishment guised as lunch was consumed in Raton at around 10:30 Mountain Time, or 11:30 CDT, and we were back on the road by noon Dallas time. Again we were making good time, each year when making this ride I am like a machine, a man on a mission, focused on a goal – eye on the prize. This year was no different, only that there were two machines and two eyes on the prize.

Some times I wonder why Amarillo is not a rain forest. It seems that every year, every time I ride through Amarillo on may way to Colorado, or my way from Colorado, it rains somewhere around Amarillo. This year was no different, nor did I really expect it to be. I think I am just going to install a rain suit app to my GPS, and when I get in the vicinity of Amarillo, it will automatically pull my rain suit out and dress me in it. Native American Indian Organizations should consider changing the name of their rain dance rituals to the Amarillo Dance, if they moved the Sahara Desert to Amarillo, it would be called Brazil. I have to admit that this years offering was rather weak by the time it hit us, but it rained in Amarillo nonetheless.

One of the things I was attempting as we made our way through Amarillo was to make it from Dalhart to Childress on a single tank of gas. I have not had my 1200 long enough to get a real good feel for the gas mileage. My 650 was a piece of cake. I could figure an easy 70MPG at 70MPH; to be safe I figured 50MPG when running around 80+MPH. I more or less figured I could get about 200 miles out of a tank on my 1200, but I cannot remember if I “completely” topped of the tank in Dalhart. And at 187 miles, 6.2 miles from gas in Childress, the engine died. Damnit. I had just passed a gas station about 20 miles earlier in Memphis and thought; maybe I should just stop here and play it safe. But we were determined to see how far I could go on a tank, and as Agent 86 would say; “missed it by that much”. Gary rode the 6.2 miles up the rode to the gas station, and came back with a little over a gallon. In the mean time, I sat by the side of the road and tried taking pictures of my bike, dragging the shutter as big semis drove by. When Gary got back we put the gallon in the tank, rode into town and filled up. We thought about eating in Childress, but decided to beat our way on to Wichita Falls, knowing we would have to stop for gas at least one more time before home and figured we could kill two birds with one stone. By my calculations, if we could keep our last stop to less than 30 minutes, we could be home by 10 PM. So off we went into the waning sunlight. We stopped at an Arbys in Wichita Falls, but there was not a convenient place to get gas, so we pushed on another 40 miles or so. The last stop, was the last 100 miles to home, and was probably the most precarious of the ride. When we got onto the highway from the gas stop, a truck was barreling down on us, not a big deal, we just gassed the engines, then immediately afterward another truck in the right lane had a blow-out - bits and pieces of the giant tire flying everywhere, all of this in the dying light of the day under an increasingly cloudy sky. By the time we made it to Hwy 380 in Decatur, it had started to rain. Gary had been talking to his wife Rachel several times throughout the day, and each time she had said it was still raining in McKinney. We kept looking at the weather on Gary’s iPhone, but thought the rain would be moving as we were riding, apparently the Amarillo Dance was working quite well in McKinney and vicinity as the rain stuck around to welcome us home. In Wichita Falls, we thought we might run in to spotty showers, so we both slipped on our rain jackets, did not bother with the full gear, as we did not think we would need it. This would have been a big mistake if we were still going to be on the road, and we probably would have stopped and put on the full gear if we were still going be traveling a few more days, but as we were on the very last leg of our epic ride, home awaited and so did dry clothes and washing machines. So onward we pushed. As any last leg of a long trip goes, this last 60 miles of 380 seemed to never end. While our speeds really did not decreases that much, the torrential rains did not seem to make the time pass and quicker, and the stop and go traffic of Denton did not wile away the hourglass either. At the intersection of 287 and 380, Gary and I gave each other a high five and said “good ride”, when we approached the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway where I would turn south and Gary would continue west, we honked, waved and made the last 10 or so miles on our own. I pulled into my garage in Plano at 10:15 PM, exactly 16 hours after pulling out of Bill’s garage in Estes Park. 865 miles collect by the 1200 cc’s of the big boxer engine that day. Another great ride to Colorado, and more great memories stored in my mind and on the flash drive of mine and Gary’s camera cards. I’m already looking forward to next year.

Colorado 2009 Part 2

2009-07-25T22:05:00.012-05:00

Thursday July 23,2009

Dillon Co - Estes Park CO

Todays ride was a short ride in comparison to the past few days. About 175 miles or so. We slept in a bit and got a late start knowing we did not need to be in a big hurry. The plan was to be at Bill’s house in Estes Park around 2:00 PM. I had talked to Bill the evening before and he was going to ride the Old Fall River Road (more later on Fall River), in the morning and then be home around 2:00 to meet us. As plans go, the plans did not exactly go as planned. The hyperspace ride through the Johnson side of the Eisenhower Tunnel, the ride up Hwy 40 through Granby, lunch in Grand Lake, all of those well laid plans, fell into place as were they placed the evening before, however the ride through the park on Trail Ridge Road is where the plan was cleanly removed from its well laid tracks. It seems that the National Park Service, in it’s infinite wisdom, had determined that the the middle of the 3 or 4 busiest months of it’s operation would be the best time to repave the only road that runs through this area for hundreds of miles. A two hour delay was the result of this planning, which ultimately affected our plans and we pulled onto the bridge that crosses the Big Thompson River to Bill’s front drive at around 4:00 PM. Our Destination had been made, and the next few days we would add another BMW, a brand new G650GS to the F800GS and R1200GS that had just completed the journey from North Texas.

Friday July 24, 2009

Estes Park CO

Our First Day in Estes Park started off with a ride up the Old Fall River Road. The Old Fall River Road is a one way dirt road that travels from the north entrance of the park off of hwy 34. It used to be the only road that went to the top (which, by the way is only 12, 172 ft, the Trail Ridge road actually climbs to 12,223 ft - it is not marked in any way, so I don’t know if anyone is actually aware of this or not), now it is kind of a novelty, scenic road that travels to the top. It is a beautifully scenic, tree lined, river bordered, road of gravel switchbacks that slowly creeps it’s way 11 miles from the bottom of the park to the Alpine Visitor Center at the summit. When you get to the summit, there is the common tourist attracting gift shops, information centers, $2.37 bottles of water, and restaurant. There was even “Mr. Buckles”, a rather eccentric older gentleman who used to work at the Grand Lake Lodge before it shut down a couple years ago. Traveling up Old Fall River is a great ride, however I have to warn, it has a lot of traffic. Most of the auto traffic is courteous enough to pull aside and allow motorcycles to pass, however on occasion, you will get a Prius, or Hummer wannabe, who just not get it. Once you find the opportunity, you can fly past, but those opportunities are far and few between. The ride back down Trail Ridge from the top was much better than the day before as the road work was on the Grand Lake side, not the Estes Park side.

After our Old Fall River Road excursion, we headed out to Stove Prairie Road. Stove Prairie Road is a fantastic road for a sport bike, and having a dual sport, it was right up our alley. The only problem we had was that it started to rain. That tended to show us down a bit. The rain was scattered, and hence the wet roads were scattered. So we were able to ride some of the road as intended. Our intention was to ride Stove Prairie, then grab a quick afternoon snack a Hooters in Loveland, and then head back to Bill’s. Rush hour traffic in Ft. Collins and Loveland, more or less changed those plans and we ended up having dinner instead of a snack and headed back to Estes Park.

Saturday July 25, 2009

Estes Park

What a fantastic day of riding. Sometimes I don’t understand why every single individual who owns a motorcycle, does not own a dual sport. The weather was threatening to be less that cooperative today, so we got up a bit early to beat the afternoon showers that were posed to be eminent. A quick breakfast at Ed’s Cantina (served by my “muggs” our waitress), and we were on our way to Pierson Park. Bill had camped there a few times in the past, and we had driven my Xterra up a little bit of it several years ago, but a lot of the forest access road would be a first for all three of us. This was a fantastic off-road trail for 3 of BMW’s finest GS models. After the ride today, I am even more impressed with the off-road capabilities of the 1200, it easily ate up the rocky terrain. Perhaps not as easily as Gary’s F800 and Bill’s G650, but I was able to keep right with both of them. In fact there were times I had to stop and let them get a little ahead of me, not so much that the bike more suitable, but more because I have learned over the past few days of off-road riding that I need to keep the RPMs of the big boxer up and the momentum of the big bike moving. I can not creep up some of the terrain the lighter more capable bikes can take on. I have been watching Gary ride the 800 in our back country excursions for a few days now and have grown accustom to his and the bikes abilities, I was very impressed with Bill’s ability off-road - he took his newly acquired beemer up this mountain road like he had been doing it for years. We spent a few hours riding up and around the mountain, ended up making a big loop and headed back to Bill’s house.

After we took a quick break back at the house, we headed out to an unknown road we had found on a map in one of the shops we made our way through a day or two earlier. All we knew was that there was a hiking trail head called Cow Creek. The trail head was just down the road from the Gem Lake Trail Head. A few years ago, I had hiked up to Gem Lake and kind of had an idea of where the road would be if we knew which road it was off of. We did a bit of research, and figured it was off of the Devils Gulch road. Devils Gulch is a great motorcycle road between Estes Park and Drake that runs through Glen Haven. This was perfect. We found the road we were looking for, it was really just a graded gravel road, but scenic none the less. Gary and I had switched bikes so it was interesting to ride the 800 for a while. After riding the gravel road, we switched back to our own bikes and hit Devils Gulch. Once we got to the road, Bill looked over at me and said, “tear your ass”, I obliged, Gary followed in quick pursuit and we downshifted our way through the hairpin turns. The only thing holding us back being a Honda and a Harley.

After straightening out all of Devil Gulch’s twists and turns, the next item on the agenda was to make a quick visit to the BMW dealership in the Ft. Collins/Loveland area, and a quick lunch. While the guy behind the counter seemed pretty cool, the dealership itself seemed to lack the character of the dealership we are used to in Dallas. North Dallas BMW is more of a neighborhood motorcycle shop, they bring pizza in for lunch on Saturdays, and you can really just more or less hang out and shoot the shit for a few hours if you want, this dealership - while very nice, and knowledgeable, seemed more like a car dealership. Of course that did not stop us from picking up a few items. On the way back through the canyons on hwy 34, we got a bit of rain, and pulled into Bill’s driveway around 4:30. During the rain, Bill and I had passed a couple of cars, Gary was not abel to safely make the pass, so he fell behind a bit. As Bill and I pulled onto the bridge I decided to wait for Gary - knowing he may not know where to make the turn because he had only been this direction up the canyon once. While waiting on the bridge in the falling rain. Because my camera was occupying the tank bag, I decided it would be wise to put the rain cover on. When doing so, I shifted the bike to neutral, and started to lean the bike onto the side stand. As the bike leaned just past that point it should have stopped it’s decent, it continued it’s downward travel toward the ground and continued it’s journey of demeaning my self esteem. A great day of riding topped of by dropping the bike on a rain covered bridge over a roaring river. Truthfully not a big deal, a 500 lb bike is really much easier to pick up than you think it would be, and it was just a simple momentary lack of reason, in the end - another great day of riding under our belts.

Colorado July 2009 - Part 1

2009-07-22T23:08:00.017-05:00

Colorado 2009 - GS Adventure

The past two years I have made a solo journey to Colorado, since then, it has been a highlight of my year. This year the sojourn would not be solo, this year Gary and I are making the trip together, and in fact we are writing this blog entry while on the road, in Dillon Colorado, to be exact - 4 days into the ride. We will try to blog more, but we will be in Estes Park tomorrow and I think it may be a while before we have access to the internet again. Here is a brief summary of our stories to this point

Sunday July 19, 2009

McKinney TX - Taos NM

We departed around 7:30 in the morning with the intent of making Raton NM, but hoping we might be able to make Taos. The ride was about as relatively uneventful as any ride can be when riding through this part of Texas, however much to our satisfaction, the 105 degree weather had calmed down to the low 90’s on Sunday. So the riding was bearable with mesh gear. Just past Amarillo, the long straight flat roads gave way to a little more interest as we bypassed Dumas for a more direct route to Dalhart. When we got into Dalhart we saw that storms were starting to build up in the direction of Taos, so we decided to just make Raton and call it a day. That plan held weight until Clayton NM, when we looked at each other said “Taos?”, at which point we promptly headed west. Good call, unless you don’t like riding in storms. The storm did not last to long, but it came in strong for a while. After the rain, we rode through Cimmaron and I don’t know if it is because it was the first of the trip, or if it is really that grand, but the road between Cimmaron Taos, is some of most beautiful riding I’ve ever done.

We pulled into Taos 670 miles and 14 hours after leaving Gary’s house in McKinney, and around 8:30 Sunday (time change) evening completed our first days ride.

Monday July 20, 2009

Taos NM - Telluride CO

The morning was crisp and bright and the coffee was hot and black. Our dual sport Beemers would take us through northern New Mexico, over the Rio Grand Gorge, and past the Dr Seuse looking houses that lined the long, straight, undulating roads that vanished into the horizon. We made our way north towards Colorado where more adventure would await. The as we sat at the bar in Taos the evening prior, we had decided to make our way through Durango, up 145 to Telluride, spend some time in Telluride and then ride a road called the Last Dollar Road the next morning. The only change to that plan was that the GPS took us to a rode through the Purgatory Ski Resort that did not exist. Gary thought 145 broke off of 550 in Durango, but the GPS was saying to keep going, and like a robot wired to the technology which it was built upon, I blindly followed. In the end, we had to ride through Ridgeway to get to Telluride, about 70 miles out of the way, but it was a nice ride up 550, Silverton, Ouray, and the Million Dollar highway. One of the options was to take Ophir Pass from Silverton to 145, but I had not been feeling well the entire day and thought the wise decision was not to make my first off-road mountain pass on my new 1200 under those conditions. In the end, it probably would not have saved to much time by taking Ophir, so it was probably the right decision although not the “adventurous” one. We got in to Telluride around 7 PM, checked into the hotel, and had a really great dinner at a restaurant at the top of the mountain. While Gary had been to Telluride before, I had never been and I’m glad we wanted to go - Telluride is a great little town. Population, 2,500 we were informed.

Tuesday July 21,2009

Telluride CO - Glenwood Springs CO

I think the very first words I spoke Tuesday morning were “you want to ride up to Bridal Veil Falls?”... When we rode into Telluride about 12 hours earlier, we rode to the end of town and Gary showed me Bridal Falls, pointed at a gravel road and said “I think that goes up to Bridal Veil Falls”. I don’t remember if we really discussed riding up there - as I said, I was kind of out of it on Monday, but I remember waking up thinking, we could ride up there after breakfast and then head up Last Dollar. I was feeling much better this morning, and after a quick breakfast, we aired down the tires a bit, left all of the luggage in the hotel room and made our way through the nostalgic buildings towards the unpaved road we had spied the evening before. They say the F800GS is a more capable bike than the R1200GS off-road. Today, the proof was in the pudding. Gary easily made his way up the switchbacks while I struggled. I can chalk some of this up to inexperience with the new bike off-road (other then the off-road around the Dallas area), but this was Gary’s first off-road on the 800 as well. It got a lot easier as we continued to ride up the rocky road, but I was not exactly looking forward to coming back down. To help avoid an extra dose of prilosec for the day, the low gearing of the big GS made the descent a non event, I even got the switch backs under control after a couple.

After Bridal Veil, we loaded up the bikes with all the gear, checked out of the hotel and headed to Last Dollar Road. Last Dollar is a really fun and easy road. There is about a 5 or 6 mile section in the middle that is a little more narrow and challenging (and fun), but most of the roads 20 miles is just gravel. The road winds it’s way through, Aspens, crosses streams, overlooks grand vistas, and grasslands. While we rode it in the summer, they say it is one of the most scenic and photographed places in Colorado in the fall.

The next stop on our agenda was Marble Colorado and the Mill in Crystal. We made our way North on 133 until the turn off to Marble. Winded our way to Marble and stopped at the General Store. We went inside to get a cold drink and talk to the locals about the road to Crystal. What we got was “it’s rough”, and “my brother can come and get you if you can’t get out”. Then we met some really nice folks from Kansas on the porch while sipping on our cool beverages. Ironically, one of the guys names was Gary... (easy to remember). They gave us some advice on the road as well, and even offered to store our gear at their house so we could lighten our bikes for the ride. We took Gary up on his offer, took the side, case, top cases, etc... off the bikes and headed out towards Crystal. Long story short, we did not make it to Crystal. We made it almost 1/2 way. If it had been earlier in the day and we would not have had to rode back in the dark - maybe we would have continued... maybe not. This was a pretty rough rode. Having ridden to Bridal Veil earlier in the day certainly helped, and all of the ridding we rode on our 650’s certainly helped, but personally, I had been in situations where I would cross one obstacle, think it was the last, cross another - then get in too deep and have to cross all of them again to get out. At one point we stopped and I told Gary that I thought if we kept going the last 3 miles, I may be in to deep for me to handle getting back out. He said that he was kind of thinking the same thing and we decided the best thing was to turn around and make our way back out. One thing I can say is that we were told that it would probably take us a couple of hours to make it one way, to Crystal and then another 2 hours to make it back out. We had actually made it to almost 1/2 way in about 15 minutes - but of course on a bike, especially a 500 lb bike - you have to commit, you can’t creep. When we got back to Gary (from Kansas’) house, we stopped and chatted for a while before making our way to Glenwood Springs. We were going to stay in Carbondale, but figured Glenwood would have more hotel options with wi-fi so we could update this blog. In the end, a full day of riding, with all of the off-road included pretty much zapped up and after dinner, no blogging was to be done.

Wednesday July 22, 2009

Glenwood Springs CO - Dillon CO

The continental breakfast of coffee and danish at the hotel in Glenwood Springs served purpose of sustaining us as we burned up the 40 miles of southbound highway 82 towards Aspen. A more substantial early morning meal was devoured at a popular Aspen Cafe. Although it was just the house fare, the coffee was quite aromatic and flavorful. After leaving Aspen, it was on to Independence Pass. I had ridden this stretch of twisted, happily misshapen highway before, and it is one of my favorites for its tree lined, river following, mounting hugging winding turns. At one point we caught up to two riders, one on a Harley, and one on a Gold Wing. I found an opportunity to pass the Harley and when I did the Gold Wing rider hit the throttle and I have to say that I was quite impresses with the Honda. As the Harley fell away, I would have really had to push it to pass the Gold Wing, and an opportunity never safely presented itself, nor was I seeking one, I was happy to fly to the top under the gold wings of the Honda.

We wanted to do a little more off-pavement riding today, and I remembered a spot a couple of miles from the Continental Divide at the summit. There was a river crossing that I wanted to do on my 650 that I chose not to attempt due to being solo. When I found the access to the road, Gary and I pulled off of hwy 82. We stopped and analyzed the crossing for a few minutes. Plotted out the best path to cross the 20 or so yards of rushing water, and decided that Gary would cross first. Gary rode across the river, water cascading up both sides of the bike, and made his way to the other side. I was looking forward to my crossing, it looked easy. However, when he got to the other side, he had a different story. He said that it was not that easy and that he almost busted his ass. Evident was the fact that he did not take the path we had discussed, I thought it was just that he decided to go a different way. He said it was because the loose rocks on the bottom of the river forced him that direction. We spent some time discussing it, and ultimately it was decided that the wise call would be for me not to cross. The dilemma was that Gary would have to get back to my side of the river. After discussing options of removing the luggage and walking it across Gary decided to just ride back across slowly and be ready to stop if he needed to. The 2nd crossing was a bit slower, but successful. After Gary got back across we talked about it more. I had been thinking about crossing this river since not doing it two years prior, and after making two crossings already I think Gary decided that it may not be as hard as it was the first time, so we made the executive decision to push on, cross the river and see what was on the other side. The road after our agua adventure was not so rough under wheel as it was rough on the handle bars and side cases. I remember this from two years ago as this ended up being a different part of the road I had taken an excursion on from the other side. Over all it meandered its way back to the highway after a couple of miles through the forest. Another adventured logged under the engine guards, and logged by the GPS.

The remainder of the day was spent riding from Independence Pass through Leadville to Dillon, fairly uneventful, if you can call fantastic scenery uneventful. Which brings us, her. Dillion Colorado, sitting behind the keyboard of an apple laptop blogging about our Colorado adventure - while still in Colorado. More to come....

adventure awaits…

2009-07-16T21:45:00.003-05:00

Preparation for an imminent two-wheeled venture is always an exploit to be both revered and dreaded. The excitement of organizing the gear, buying the items you didn’t know you needed until you thought “I may need…”, deciding what to take and what to leave behind. Laying down the groundwork of where to go, what to see, when to go, how long… Dreading what you may be forgetting to pack that you did not realize you needed until you needed it. Both worrying, and being excited at the same time, about running into bad weather, or about how difficult that mountain pass is really going to be on a 500 lb fully loaded bike. The cycle of preparing and procrastinating, planning and pondering, and just simply getting more energized about the ride, the journey, the yet unlived memories, as each day passes.

adventure awaits…

Independence Day

2009-07-05T21:31:00.010-05:00

Our forth of July adventure was an example what good riding is all about. With a basic plan to explore some of North Texas best roads, take some pictures, capture video, and grab a bite to eat, we accomplished it all.

Given that I'm a noob at this blogging stuff, I'm going to ease into this. So first, it was great to meet y'all, and thanks Rego for the momentous suprise with ice cold beer. Per the request, here are some visuals from our ride. Cheers,

The herd

The bridge

The gang

The footage

Doug...

Quatro de Julio

2009-07-05T20:26:00.007-05:00

The 4th of July is a celebration of freedom. The independence of a nation, the freedom of free will, and the liberty to ride any road we damn well please. We spent this national holiday by mounting four German made motorcycles and exploring a part of north Texas that our forefathers and so many thereafter fought for and died to protect. All together we were on four BMW GS’s, an R1150GSA, two R1200GS’, and an F800GS. It was a rather unique experience riding with three other bikes of such similar capabilities. While our riding skills ranged, the bikes themselves were fully capable of handling any of the roads we would ride. There was no need to slow down after a stretch of twisties and wait for anyone to catch up because they were dragging floorboards trying to keep up. That, in combination with the roads and the scenery made for a great day of riding in celebration of our nations birth.

The riders were Rego, on the 1150, Gary on the F800, and Doug on his 1200, forming a set along with mine. We headed out a little after 0730 from McKinney. It was a little later than we usually ride on hot humid days in Texas, but early enough to beat most of the heat. The first stop was in Whitewright, a small settlement to the north and east of Dallas. A couple of miles north of Whitewright hwy 697 twists and turns its way into your mind, making you forget you are still in Texas. The closest comparison I can make to this Fannin County road, is Stove Prairie Road just north of Masonville Colorado. To enhance our riding experience, Doug mounted his video camera and filmed Gary and I riding. The suspension on my R1200GS is much more adept at handling a road like this than my F650 was capable of in conjunction with my riding skills. I took full advantage of it and road what I felt was a relatively quick pace. It was fantastic, I have never ridden on a track, but it has to be something similar to this – sans the scenery. The bends in the road just kept piling up as it meandered its way from Whitwright to Sherman. It was so much fun, we turned around and rode it again – a twofer on the 4th. At some point I hope Doug will either post the video here, or put a link on Smugbug or Youtube. (will keep you updated…)

Rego and Doug arriving for the ride

Doug and his R1200GS

Rego decides to ride bitch...

After riding 697

After a quick breakfast in Whitewright, we decided to head to the Texas, Oklahoma boarder. There is an old bridge that crosses the Red River in an area called Carpenters Bluff. The bridge was originally built in 1910 as a railroad crossing, and eventually became a single lane traffic bridge some time in the 60’s. I don’t know if it is the influence of the Red River that winds its way west to east forming the state line, but once you get into the Red River Valley, the roads seem to start following suit. We had a great ride to the bridge. We stopped on the Texas side of the bridge and lingered under the big trees that lined the river for a while. Then we were back on the road again and road 120 all the way back to 75. Our intent was to just take 75 back to McKinney, however when we pulled off the highway in Anna, we decided to continue west for a while along 455 until we got to Celina to have some lunch. There is a little country restaurant in Celina called Lucy’s. I have eaten there several times either after a morning dove hunt, or while riding 455. The last two times I tried cure my hunger at this cool little café, it has been closed. I guess the economy had taken its toll in the small towns of America as much as anywhere else. After a few more failed attempts at finding a small town eatery, we ended up at the La Hacienda Ranch in Frisco for some really good Mexican food.

Breakfast in Whitewright

biker gang?

After lunch we all parted ways, each to enjoy his own sense of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of twisting roads that intertwine, connect, and encompass the land that some 233 years ago, a small group of men decided was their own.

BMW F650GS – BMW R1200GS; contrasts and similarities

2009-06-24T21:55:00.003-05:00

I owned my 2006 BMW F650 for 26,000 miles; I’ve owned my 2008 R1200GS for about 3,000 miles now. These 29,000 miles encompass all of my riding experience – just under 3 years. When comparing these two machines, there are similarities and contrasts. It is hard to say which bike is the better of the two machines, and truthfully, I don’t know that one of them is better than the other.

I loved my F650 - it was my first motorcycle. This bike taught me how to ride; it was a forgiving and loving creature that put up with all of my inexperience and mistakes. It took me to places flung far from home, showed me freedom, adventure, and brought calmness to my heart, my head and my soul. This mechanical companion was my guardian as I traveled on adventures that would roll over 3,000 miles under her single cylinder Rotax engine. With that being said, it would be very hard to not have a jaded opinion towards this bike. However, the days of my 650 were numbered, and like a true guarding, she sacrificed herself as a Chevy Silverado pulled out in front of me as we were traveling 60 miles per hour. I survived; the bike did not.

I then had a decision to make. Buy a used F650, a new F800GS, or take advantage of a very sweet deal I could get on a brand new 2008 R1200GS. I went the route of the R12. It was not the same as my 650, but I was very excited to have a new bike, and to be riding again. The bikes are different; the R1200 is WAY faster, almost scary fast. It seems like this bike can pretty much keep up with or out perform a lot of the sport bikes out there. It won’t touch a liter bike or a supersport, but I don’t think there is any other bike on the planet that can do what this bike does on the road, and then get down and dirty off-road as well. While truthfully my F650 had plenty of power, enough for me - the difference between the 650 and the 1200 is something beyond night and day. To counter that advantage, I would say that in my opinion, the F650 had a wider power band than the R12. It seems like I could be in just about any gear on the 650 and not have to downshift. Sure I did not have peak performance if I was in 5th gear and slowed down to 40 or 30 without downshifting, but the bike would roll back up to speed without ever complaining. If I were to try that on the 1200, it would bitch fiercely and shutter as the engine lugged back into its peak operating range.

As to off road handling, as weird as it may sound, it seems that the 1200 actually performs better off-road than the 650. There is a huge difference in suspension. If I were riding my 1200 with a skilled or even moderately skilled rider on a 650, I am sure that the 650 would leave the 1200 in the dust. But this is a comparison of my opinion of both bikes and so far, the 1200 seems to handle the dirt better. It may just be that I myself am better at riding off-road, and it is not the bike at all – but when I compare the two, I feel the 1200 handles it better, despite being around 60 lbs heavier. I have ridden over obstacles on the 1200 that would have put me on my ass on the 650.

Aesthetically I think the 1200 looks better than the 650. A lot of people do not agree with me on this point, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I have always admired the look of the big GS’s and wished my 650 looked a little more like it’s big brother. I think the biggest thing for me was the beak and headlight. I always thought these two items had more appeal on the bigger bike. Any time I rode it, I would always get people admiring and looking at my F650, mostly when it was parked somewhere. It was a great looking bike and I was complemented on it often. However in the short time I have had the 1200, I have probably already had more people comment on it than 2-1/2 years of ownership of the 650. People routinely stop beside me in traffic and shout out “nice bike” from their car windows. Beauty may be held in the eyes of those casting the gaze, but it seems a larger sect of the population agrees with my eyes.

There is absolutely no contest when looking at mileage and range. The 650 is a very dominantly clear winner in this field. The dual spark single of the F650 would generate 70 MPG on a consistent, day-in day-out basis. There were times when riding the mountain roads in Colorado that I would get up to 96 MPG out of this efficient machine. The lowest gas mileage I ever had to put up with was 56 MPG from a tank when coming home at 85 – 90 miles per hour on a fully bagged out and loaded bike. To date, the best I have been able to squeeze out of the R1200 is about 45 MPG. Of course almost every tank run through the R1200 has included some city traffic, but at almost 3,000 miles on the OD, I am guessing it is probably not going to get much better. Although the tank held about a gallon less fuel, I could easily get 200+ miles out of a tank before the fuel light would come on, and then I knew I had around 70 miles left in the tank. The low fuel light on the R12 comes on around 170 and I probably have right at around 40 miles in the tank. I don’t know that this is going to be a big problem when traveling, I usually tend to stop every 2 – 3 hours anyway when riding, but the comfort zone of knowing I could still go another 70+ miles when the fuel light came on is going to be gone.

There is very little doubt that the 1200 handles better than the 650 – at least once you get used to riding it. I feel much more comfortable leaning into turns on the 1200 than I ever did on the 650. I’m not sure why that is, perhaps the suspension. The 1200 is a bigger bike though and while it handles better when riding at speed, you have to learn how to handle it at low speeds; it turns wider and feels a bit more top heavy than the smaller counterpart. The 650 seemed to be more agile as well. While I am getting used to, and learning how to flick the 1200 around, it was effortless on the 650, and although the additional power certainly helps you get around other vehicles, I felt that the 650 was a better bike in heavy traffic. Of course that may be 26,000 miles of handling one bike vs. only 3,000 miles on the new bike. The only real handling complaint I would have about the 1200 is that it seems to be a little less sure footed when riding over city titties in a turn. It feels more like I would loose traction than it did on the 650.

One thing I am still having a hard time believing is that the air/oil cooled 1200 runs at a lower temperature than the liquid cooled 650. I know the opposing cylinders of the 1200 is a huge advantage in keeping the bike running cool, but even when stopped in 100 degree Texas heat, I really don’t feel the engine heat. I used to feel the heat from by 650 while I was moving, even in cooler weather (which was not always a bad thing by the way…).

As to working on the bike, I was used to and comfortable with doing just about everything on my F650. One of the reasons I choose the R1200GS over the F800GS is that it seemed that everything on the 1200 would be easier to get to and to work on. Of course you have the final drive, but I have some experience with drivelines from working on the machines at my job. The shaft drive is much cleaner; I don’t have to put ATF on the chain after every tank. While talking about final drives, one of the things I liked about the 1200 was that it seemed like it was geared pretty low, as low as my 650 with a 49-tooth rear sprocket and stock 16-tooth front. Of course the issue is that I cannot change the gearing on the 1200 unless I really got into the bike. The 650 was just a change of a sprocket and chain.

Riding at highway speeds truthfully does not feel that much better than it did on the 650. This is the thing everyone always told and/or tells me. That I am going to like the 1200 much more on the highway. In some respect that is a true statement, especially when riding over 70-80 MPH. However, I really do not feel that much of a difference at a steady 70MPH between the two bikes. Sure there is a difference, and of course the 1200 has abundant additional power waiting in the wings at that speed that was not present on the 650. However my month old memory between crashing the old bike to purchasing the new one, did not find a significant difference.

Well, that is my evaluation of the two bikes. Right now, I have to say that I prefer the 1200, but of course I would – that is what I am riding. However if someone were to ask me which to buy, outside of taking the Chinese built engine of the G650GS into consideration. I would steer most first time dual sport riders to the F650. If they were coming off of something with a lot of power then I would recommend the 1200. Hopefully after 23,000 more miles on the new bike, I will find it treated me just as well as the old bike (rest it’s soul).

A morning ride

2009-06-21T19:34:00.005-05:00

On a Sunday morning a couple of years ago, I took of on a ride towards what some people have called the North Texas Hill Country. This is the portion of land north of hwy 82, and south of the Red River situated between Muenster and Nacona. The thing I remember the most about the ride was the fact that about 100 miles from home, I got a flat. Being a Sunday and all of the shops closed, getting home simply added to the adventure. Since that time I have wanted to ride this part of Texas again. I have ridden along 82 on my way to and from Colorado, but never took the time to hit the smaller roads to the north. Usually out of desire to get as close to Colorado as I could on the first day out. Finally this past Saturday, I made the trip again.

I’ve know Alonzo for several years, we’ve worked together, traveled together, been known to throw back a beer or two in a couple of different cities, and get into heated discussions regarding the Dallas Cowboys with the fine citizens of those cities. However, we have never ridden motorcycles together. I’ve been riding a little over 2 years now, and Alonzo has been riding longer. It seems each time he is in my office, or me in his, the discussion moves in the direction of motorbikes. Last weekend Alonzo rode down to Austin, and then through the hill country on the way back. He remarked about what a great ride it had been, and I mentioned the ride I had taken just south of the Red River a while back. Over the next couple of days, we had decided to ride that direction on Saturday.

The unwelcome sound of my alarm clock woke me way to early for a Saturday morning. I was meeting Alonzo at 0630 at the corner of Parker Rd and the Dallas North Tollway. He had mentioned that a couple of his neighbors would probably join us, as I sat enjoying a aromic cup of Starbucks, Robert, Valentino and Alonzo came rolling into the parking lot about 10 minutes earlier than expected. A couple of them had to gas up prior to the ride, so a quick stop at the gas station and we were on our way. A rather unique mix of bikes ventured north on the tollway, Alonzo on his Honda VTX1800, Valentino on his Suzuki Boulevard M109 and Robert on his Yamaha FJR 1300, all followed me on my BMW R1200GS through the glowing light of daybreak. We took the quick route north to hwy 455 – heading up the tollway to 380, then north again on 289 until we hit 455. Then it was west on 455 all the way to Montague. The Texas countryside is amazingly scenic and nostalgic, taking you back to a simpler time, a more relaxed pace than the bustle and stop lights of city life. And the calm of the morning enhanced it even more. We’ve had some good rain this spring and the landscape was almost an emerald green topped by a sapphire sky that was brushed with the white and orange clouds that only reveal themselves in the early morning light. The road was a series of sweeping turns, rise and falls in elevation, with a few tight turns to add a bit of excitement. I am at work each day before sunrise, and on the weekends I rarely get out of bed in time to enjoy it. But Sunrise is my favorite time of day, whether awakening to a view of a prehistoric valley from a precipice in Big Bend, or from the seat of a motorcycle riding the country roads of North Texas; they all bring the same sense of well being to my soul. It is one of the times I feel most alive and at peace.

Once we arrived in Montague, it was a short jaunt up 103 before we headed west on 2634. 2634 is where the riding became exhilarating again. While it is not the mountains of Colorado, or the Hill Country of Austin, this area just south of the Red River can hold its own. The pavement was no longer flat, the road would swell up beneath you only to fall away again around a sweeping turn lined by mesquite and live oaks. Little yellow flowers lined the roadway, while perfectly place trees dotted the rolling meadows on the left and to the right. We didn’t even have to slow down for it, but 2953 jutted off of hwy 2634, which eventually gave way to 677 as we headed south towards St. Jo. These roads, along with 373, which we did not ride on this outing, are some of the roads anyone who rides a motorcycle needs to add to their library of routes. In the pre-noon hours of the day, even the hot Texas weather seems like something distant and unfamiliar as we rode into St. Jo at the junction of 677 and hwy 82.

150 years ago, this area was part of the Chisholm Trail that was used to drive cattle from southern Texas up through Oklahoma and on to Kansas. This area was about the start of where the trail had to cross into Indian Territory so I can imagine it was likely a stopping point before crossing the Red River. Although it has been renamed as Biker Roadhouse, there is a little motorcycle apparel shop in St. Jo that used to be called the Chisholm Trail Mercantile in honor of the history of the area. It is a nice destination and place to stop and rest for a bit. The store is really geared more towards the cruiser bikes like Harleys, Alonzo’s VTX and Valentino’s Boulevard, but I stop there any time I am riding through on Hwy 82. The folks are really friendly and it is a great place to stop for a cold drink and just to rest for a while. I’ve even made a few non-cruiser purchases there myself – from Draggin riding jeans, to tire pumps, to a BMW jacket patch. So no matter what kind of bike you are on, you should stop by this little shop in this little town.

By this time it was around 10:30, Alonzo needed to be back in Dallas around noon so the decisions was made to skip the 373 part of the ride and start making our way back to Dallas. As we headed east on 82 towards Muenster and Gainsville, I pulled over and asked the guys if they wanted to take the scenic route back. Silly question to which was answered by a resoundant “Hell Yes”. As we made our way through Meunster, we headed south on 373, a part of the ride I had planned; we just picked it up at a different point. It was a good choice, the riding was great from 373 to 922 all the way back to I-35. The plan was to continue on 922, along the north shore of Lake Ray Roberts, until we hit hwy 377 and on to 121. However as we must not have paid our train bill, there were two trains in opposite directions that were blocking the path of 922 as is passed under I-35. The north bound train was stopped, and the south bound train was moving at an excruciating slow crawl. After about 15 minutes of waiting, we decided that only course of action was to turn around and head south on 35. We made a quick clip down the interstate until our paths crossed 455 again. What the hell… I pulled off the highway, onto 455 and started heading east. The three other bikes followed in close order. As we made our way east, the number of motorcycle on 455 increased like rabbits on a bunny farm. First 2 bikes in front of us and one behind, then one turned of, but another would follow. Then it was a group of 6 approaching bikes, followed by another group of 4. I don’t know where they were at 6:30 in the morning, but they were certainly out by 11 and on their way to enjoy the afternoon the same as we had just enjoyed the morning.

As I exited at Parker Road and waved goodbye to Alonzo, Robert and Valentino, it was just starting to get warm. It had been a great ride and I still had half the day left. I think I need to wake up earlier on the weekends, and start enjoying my favorite part of the day.

The backcountry roads of Big Bend National Park.

2009-06-18T20:52:00.013-05:00

Big Bend country is a great place to ride a motorcycle. That experience is even farther enhanced if you have a dual-sport motorcycle. The BMW F650GS is a great ride for such activity. It is geared a little more towards the tarmac side of a dual sport ride, but lets face it, most of the riding most anyone really does on a dual sport is on concrete anyway. The bike takes full advantage of the paved roads that snake their way in and around the park, and has no problems handling anything Big Bend can throw at it when venturing into the rock and sand.

In early September of 2008, Gary booked a wedding in Marathon Texas. Marathon is about 40 miles north of the Persimmon Gap entrance station to Big Bend National Park. It is a very small town, and mostly consists of individuals of a more artistic laid back nature. I went with Gary on this venture to assist in the photography and to take advantage of some riding opportunities that would present themselves during the 5-day sojourn. I won’t get into too much detail about the wedding, only to say that the bride, groom, and their friends and family were genuinely really good people. They included us in everything as friends more than photographers shooting the wedding activities. To give a timeline reference, the night we arrived, we had dinner outside the White Buffalo bar at the Gage Hotel while patrons of the rustic tavern listened to Sarah Palin’s Hockey Mom / Pitt Bull with lipstick GOP Vice Presidential acceptance speech. In a town full of artists, it was interesting to hear the whoops coming from what appeared to be a predominately conservative audience.

We trailered the bikes to Marathon as we needed to bring a lot of camera equipment and it made more sense than trying to pack all of the equipment along with everything else onto the bikes. However there was plenty of riding to be had. The distance between Marathon and the park headquarters at Panther Junction is 70 miles. While the road out of Marathon is fairly straight and flat, it quickly starts twisting and turning its way through the hills not to long afterward. The first ride we made to the park was the in the cool clean morning the day after we arrived. After we had stopped by the park headquarters, gassed up, got some snacks and drinks, we headed west towards Castolon.

The River Road
The river road takes off of the main road about 5 miles prior to arrival in Castolon. And that was our destination for the day. The 51 miles of the river road more or less follow the Rio Grande. I have driven this road several times, but until now had never ridden it on a motorcycle. If I were to write a travel guide for motorcycles, I would only have 5 words to say – The River Road Is Fun…. This unbeaten path of Chihuahuan desert is a great ride on a dual-sport bike; there is just the right mix of sand and rock. As soon as we would get to a spot where the sand would get the back tire of the bike fishtailing, it would become rocky and manageable again. Never did we get to a point where there were massive amounts of beach to cross. Just enough to let you know it was there and keep you on your toes. The scenery was unprecedented, it was getting towards the end of the rainy season in Big Bend, and the desert was in full bloom. The western part of the river road is the more difficult part, and that’s the part of the road we were staring from. Living up to that reputation, there were even several water crossings we had to contend with. One particularly long stretch of submerged washed out road we crossed was more or less the beginning of yet another adventure/ordeal on yet another trip to Big Bend National Park. We had just made our way through this obstacle and the road smoothed out. I was riding fast; the bike was performing great, small jumps, a little air, controllable terrain, and great scenery. Everything was perfect, and I was enjoying it to the full extent a 450 lb 650cc bike on aired down Michelin Anakee tires would allow. After a mile or two something changed however, the back end began to feel mushy, at first I just thought it was the terrain, however after a few seconds, I realized there was something wrong. I pulled the bike to a stop on a flat level part of the road right after a small hill. As I was stopping the bike the vision of a dead tire sloshing its way around beneath me was running through my head. When inspected, sure enough – Flat Tire. Damn-it. That was the last thing I wanted or needed, to be changing a tire out in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert. Sometimes things are what they are, no matter how hard you want them not to be, and for me that thing was a flat tire. As I got the bike up on the center stand, Gary approached from the direction that I had just come. He said that he had seen me stop, and was wondering why I did so and got off the bike. As he rode up the hill to where the road flattened out, he saw me putting the bike on the center stand and figured we would be spending the next few minutes repairing a flat. The next action, I have to claim sheer stupidity, sheer laziness, and a sheer case of not thinking. I’m not sure why… but for some stupid reason I thought filling the tire with a can of fix-a-flat might do the trick and get me back on my way. This method had got me a hundred miles home once in the past, before I started carrying tire irons. But this time it was a big mistake. The fix-a-flat did nothing to patch the hole in the tube, and all it ended up doing was making an easy job a big pain in the ass that took much longer than it should have. In the end getting the bead broken and the old tube out was a piece of cake with two people, the problem was all of the fluid that had leaked out of the busted tube, into the tire… I spent probably 30 minutes just trying to clean all the gray, milky, sticky crap out of the tire and rim. I had to get it out so that the new tube did not bind, pinch, and rupture when inflated. To add to the experience the painstaking task was achieve under the hot desert sun. Another stupid act on our part was to leave the manual tire pump back at camp. I had a C02 tire inflator, but the cartridges did not exactly fit. It took all 4 cartridges to get the tire partially inflated and the tire never set the bead completely against the rim. However, as we pretty much had no other alternatives, I would have to ride it as it was. At this point we had made our way about 15 miles down the road. We were just getting to the old Johnson Ranch airfield that served as a USAF station in the early 1900’s. As we would have another 35 miles to cross if we continued east, we decided the best course of action was to turn around and head back towards Castolon. Amazingly enough, the bike performed exceptionally well on a half inflated, un-beaded tire. Once I got to the point of realizing the tire was going to be okay, I started riding a little harder again and the bike was performing great. I knew that deflating the tires a bit helped off-road traction, but I had never deflated below about 28 lbs, as it were, I was running the rear tire at 15 lbs and it was doing great. You probably would not want to be crossing any rugged rocky terrain like this, but it was great for the road we were on.

Once we got back to the paved road, we headed west about 5 miles into Castolon. Castolon was an old army fort and barracks built back at the turn of the century when the US was having boarder issues with our neighbors to the south. It has been restored and today acts as a visitor center and store. We almost always make our way to Castolon on our trips to the Park. One of the things we were happy to see was that there is now cell phone service in Castolon. We called the motorcyclist best friend in the Big Bend country, Ralph at Cycletek. We told him of our situation and he agreed to meet us in Terlingua with a new set of tubes and a portable electric pump. About ½ hour later we were talking to Ralph, and a fresh set of tubes for both bikes, along with a Slime compact air compressor joined the other tools in my Jesse Luggage.

We did not need to be back at the Gage for a few more hours, so we decided to head up 118 toward Alpine. As we were blasting our way north on hwy 118, we had just passed the VFW post when Gary stopped, turned around, and headed back. We pulled into the parking lot of the VFW; walked inside and ordered up a couple of ice cold Tecate’s. After a hard day of riding on and off road, the cerveza’s hit the spot just perfectly. We chatted to the veterans at the VFW for a while and then mounted our bikes and continued on towards Alpine. Hwy 170 is probably the most scenic ride in the area, if not the state, however 118 holds it own - especially as you start approaching Alpine from the south. Rolling hills, winding roads, beautiful geological formations, it pretty much has it all, plus when riding the roads of southwest Texas’ Big Bend country, there is rarely any other vehicles to contend with. We arrived in Alpine and headed east back towards Marathon. We arrived back at the Gage hotel with just enough time to clean up, take a shower and get ready for dinner with the wedding party. There was an activity scheduled for the next morning, that we were invited so. It sounded like a fun time, and something fun to photograph. With the morning and evening activities set, we knew we would have a few hours set aside for riding the next day.

The Stillwell Ranch and La Linda
After photographing the morning event, we had some time before the rehearsal dinner that evening in Alpine. We decided that we wanted to ride to the old La Linda Bridge. A quick jaunt down 385 took us to FM 2627 right before the entrance to the park. Upon heading east on 2627, we entered the Black Gap Wildlife Management area. Like everything in this county, it was a spectacularly scenic desert ride. One of the things that really surprised me was how the road following the contour of the earth, undulated beneath the rubber side of the bike. The road is not traveled very often and you had to watch for build up of sand along the sides of the road in the low spots. However there was nothing to keep you from enjoying the road at a high rate of speed. About 6 miles east of the turn off from 385 is the Stillwell Store. The Stillwell’s owned a very large Ranch in this part of the country a little after the turn of the century. Hallie Stillwell was the patriarch from the age of 19 until she passed away in 1997 at the age of 99. She was a Texas Legend. If you can remember Barbara Stanwyck in a 60’s-70’s TV show called The Big Valley (I think that is what it was called), the show portrayed here as a rugged rancher woman, well Hallie was the real thing and old Babs would look like a scared little school girl in comparison. The store is mostly a stop for people visiting the Stillwell Ranch, but the also have a museum dedicated to Hallie’s 100 years in this county. We did not have time to tour the museum, but did have some time to sit and talk to Hallie’s granddaughter, and it was some interesting conversing. After a snack and drink at the store, we headed on towards the La Linda Bridge. I can’t say that there was much to see at the crossing that was shut down in 1997, but you can look across into La Linda Mexico. I don’t know if they still mine fluorspar there, but it looked as if the town was still somewhat active. After spending a short time at the bridge, we headed back to the hotel. Upon arriving back at the hotel, we figured what time we left, returned and the number of miles we clicked off. We calculated our average speed and determined that it was a “Fast Ride”. We had enough time to get cleaned up and make it to the Reata Restaurant in Alpine early enough to photograph the wedding party as they arrived.

Old Ore Road
Saturday was the wedding, so there were no motorcycle adventures, however Sunday would host another dual-sport ride. As the wedding ran pretty late, we did not get an early start on Sunday. After breakfast, we made our way back to the park. A few miles after the park entrance the Dagger Flat road takes you east towards Dagger Flats, before you get there, Old Ore Road winds its way for 26.4 miles south. Zinc and Silver Ore, used to be mined in this area in the early 1900’s, and Old Ore Road is what was used to move the ore from Boquillas Canyon to the Railroad in Marathon. You would not recognize this today as the vast majority of it was paved over to become Hwy 385. However this portion of the road as remained. For the most part is has been un-maintained for almost 100 years now. This is a great road whether driving it in a 4x4, or riding it on a motorcycle. I have driven every back country road in Big Bend National Park, and have driven portions of Old Ore, but never from start to finish so this would be a first time experience for me. All of the back country roads in Big Bend give you access to parts of the park over 90% of the visitor never see, and if you want to see the real Big Bend, it is these roads you have to venture forth on. The vistas are spectacular from just about any of the roads, any time you are on them. However taking one of them for the first time is probably the best time of all. The riding was fairly technical, at least for me. A lot of rocks, hill climbs, descents, ruts, sand and mud. And it was electrifying. As falling is a part of off-road riding, I took full advantage of the opportunity. The first time was the classic, try to pass Gary in the sand and bust my ass. It seems that almost every time I pass Gary off road that happens… (or I get a flat…). But it was fun and I got up laughing about it. The terrain was widely varying, there were parts of the road you could ride really fast, and other parts you had to take really slow. As we approached parts of the road we would find interesting, we would stop and check them out for a bit. At one point on a rocky hill climb, Gary’s rear tire slipped out from under him, and down he went with a thump. Gary was unhurt, but there was a little damage to the bike, nothing to keep him from riding safely, just a broken peg. A few miles later it was my turn again. It was a rutted out hill climb, I was down in the rut and decided I needed to get out of it and apparently gave it too much throttle. To my surprise, the bike JUMPED out of the rut and launched itself right into and almost over the embankment on the side of the road. The Jesse luggage took the brunt of the impact and the bike and luggage came out completely undamaged. I gotta say, that is some tough luggage. As we made our way to around 20 miles from the northern part of the road, it became a little smoother and – to be honest, more boring. I had been on this part of the road several times before on the way to Ernst Tinaja, and perhaps that familiarity in comparison to the virgin territory we had just crossed made it seem more boring. However it was a good finish to the off-road portion of the ride. We hit the pavement where Old Ore joins the park road a few miles west of Rio Grande Village. We road west into an afternoon sky of painted clouds and silhouetted mountains. A reward for our hard earned journey down Old Ore Road. Black Gap Road used to be my favorite backcountry road in Big Bend, I think it has now been replaced by Old Ore. While not as scenic, it was certainly more fun to ride. We are planning to ride this road again the next time we are down there.

Which Side are you on?

2009-06-15T17:41:00.001-05:00

So, I installed my Garmin Zumo GPS on the new bike yesterday. It was a relatively simple project considering I also installed a bus relay to connect it to. In connecting the relay wire to the source, I removed the windscreen. Again, not a big deal – however what I failed to notice is that the brackets that hold the front of the windscreen, which also allow it to pivot, were different between the right and left. When I was reinstalling the windscreen, I had to stop and figure out which one went on which side. German engineering, being German engineering – they were actually marked R & L, telling me which one went on the right, and which one went on the left. Of course, me being me, I had to over analyze it and question… is that the right and left when sitting on the bike, or the right and left when facing the bike??? Right and Left are relative. I figured that relativity was in relation to sitting on the bike and the installation of the windscreen went flawlessly. However it made me think of my old sailing days. Sailboats, or any boat for that matter, have a Port Side and a Starboard side. Port and starboard are not relative, they are a specific side of the boat, no matter if you are facing the bow or facing the stern. Port always remains Port, and Starboard always remains Starboard – even if you are taking about a different boat out on the water. With cars we tend to rationalize right and left by defining “driver side” and “passenger side”, this is of course exactly the same way of viewing port and starboard. Albeit, they would technically be opposite if you were in England, Australia, South Africa, or India… but we won’t go there. On a bike however there is no driver side and no passenger side, unless you are talking about front and back. Even the drive side on a bike isn’t universal; my bike has a right side drive (while sitting on the bike), while most others have a left side drive. I wonder if we should come up with some common terminology for describing the sides of a motorcycle. Maybe Throttle Side and Clutch Side? But certainly we could come up with something as unique as Port and Starboard that would make those who ride have that extra little sense of mystery about them, just like those who sail. But then again, I guess we always have the wave.

Like Superman with a Cape

2009-06-07T19:46:00.001-05:00

I wrote this over a year ago, figured I would post it here.

11/18/07

I bought a motorcycle a little over a year ago. It’s something I have always thought of a lot during my life, but something I just never did. In the year-plus I have owned my bike, I have racked up about fourteen thousand miles. Gather from that – I like to ride. Whether that is in the 06:00 pre-rush hour 70+ MPH heavy traffic on the way to work in the morning, riding around McKinney on the weekend, riding the back roads of Big Bend National Park, or a 3,000 mile 10 day trip through Colorado. I find enjoyment in all of them. There is something about it, not to sound cliché – but something about it that sets me free, something that heightens my senses, makes me feel alive, closer to Zen, calmer and more intense at the same time. I think it is as close to flying as you can get, not like flying in a plane, but flying like you had wings – like you are superman with a cape. The speed, the agility, the vision. The awareness of what is going on around you. The smells. You smell everything when you ride a bike, both good and bad. When I ride in the country, the sky is so big, the clouds are so grand, God is so close. A friend of mine said he went for a ride on a Sunday. His wife asked him why he did not go to church that day, he told her he had just been to church – I know exactly what he meant… When I ride there are no cell phones, I very rarely listen to my iPod when I ride, so there is no music, just the sound of the wind. Just the solitude of my thoughts, nothing to focus on but what is going on around me, whether that be a lady on a cell phone in a suburban, or a hairpin turn with a mountain on one side and a river on the other. It’s the perfect stress relief from work and day-to-day life. Riding is therapy, at least for me. Does it solve any deeply rooted problems, probably not, but when things start getting me down, I can take a ride and realize that things are not really as bad as they may seem. It has become, in a romantic sort of way – the guardian of my sanity.

There is so much more to say about riding, is it dangerous – yes, in some respect, but as I have said before, I am not afraid of death anymore. And then there is the camaraderie of riding, “the wave”, etc… all things I really am not going to get into right now.
I don’t ride a Harley, but they have the adage “Live to Ride, Ride to Live”, I don’t know if I would quite go that far, there are certainly other things in life besides motorcycles. But mine has certainly added a new and enjoyable aspect to my life.

Elephant Tusk

2009-06-05T18:32:00.004-05:00

I climbed Elephant Tusk once. I am certain it will not be considered a great accomplishment in the annals of mankind, but as far as the research tells me, I am the 5th person to reach the summit. Who knows what Indian may have climbed it on his or her herbally enhanced spiritual quest many, many moons ago, or what Spanish explorer may have climbed it because he thought he would find his golden riches at the summit – but as far as what I can find that has been recorded, Gary was number 4, and trudging slightly thereafter I increased the number to 5. It was an accomplishment for me, and something I will remember for the rest of my life. By climbing standards I guess it is considered a Class 4 climb because of a 40-50 foot section that technically you should use ropes – we didn’t, but that’s because… well we were just probably stupid (and did not have ropes). I will always remember this climb because for me, it was a feat that would constitute a “life-changing event”. Most of the climb was just physically difficult, I remember both of us were pretty exhausted after the 5 mile hike from the campsite, the assent, the descent, and the 5-mile hike back to camp (which was difficult enough as it was an unmarked open desert hike). And I don’t know if it was as profound for Gary as it was for me. For me there was a specific moment, about 200 yards or so from the summit that I had more or less got stuck. I was following Gary, and he had just made his way around a ledge. I tried to follow the same path that Gary had taken, but when I did I had placed my foot on a rock that was extremely loose. The rock I was holding onto to make this move was like a big tombstone. I had to hold on to the tombstone rock, put my foot on the loose rock and swing across. There was what seemed like a thousand foot drop below on both sides. As things seem to be larger than life in these types of situations, and I’m sure it was no more than a couple of hundred feet, but 200 feet or 1,000 – to me it seemed like the depths of the deepest trench the ocean has to offer. If the rock beneath my foot had not been loose, it would have been no big deal, if the drop on either side had only been a few feet, it would have been no big deal. But the rock was loose, and that was what was presenting me my opportunity for a life changing moment. I knew what I really had to do was to get a solid grasp on the tombstone with one hand, and swing myself around the thousand-foot drop to the ledge on the other side. Needless to say, I got stuck…. Not stuck physically, but stuck mentally. Rock climbing in Big Bend National Park, is not recommended – because of the loose rocks, couple that with the fact that I am NOT a rock climber and I was not in a good place at that particular moment. I must have been there for 5 minutes – but that 5 minutes escalated into what seemed like an eternity. I knew all I had to do was get a good hand hold, and swing my body across, the fact was that I could still use my foot on the loose rock, I just would not want to put any real weight on it in case it broke loose. I had been doing this for at least the past 30 minutes; from the moment the climb became climbing and not just walking up a very steep hill. I had just not been maneuvering in this fashion with a sheer drop below and certain or probable death as a result of a slip. I guess I could have turned around and made my was back down, but that was not why I had made it to within 200 yards of the summit, and turning around at that particular point on that particular mountain was not exactly the easiest task accomplished either. I thought of a lot of things during that “eternity”, I don’t know that I really need to get into all of them here, but they were about my life, about what I was made of, about whether or not I had the strength to overcome that fear at that particular moment. All of the classic stuff you read about in a book when someone weathers a storm in a small sailboat or something like that. In the end, I did swing across the tombstone, the rock did crumble beneath my foot and fall to its painful death below, and I did make it to the summit. The rest of the climb to the summit seemed like nothing after that – including the 20 or so yards that was no wider than a floor tile with sheer drops on both sides. I was pretty elated at the top. I could not wait to get back down and back to camp to have a beer. The descent went much smoother than I was anticipating. The hike back to camp, well that is another story as it got dark, open desert hike, we ran out of water, and got a little disoriented, but all of this happened only a mile or so from camp and after looking back at it, was really more of an annoyance than anything. When we got back to camp, all I wanted to drink was water, a beer was supposed to be on the agenda, but upon our return I was not even thinking of a beer. Eventually we did have that beer, but it was not as enjoyable as it was going to be when we were at the summit. I think because by the end of it all we were pretty exhausted. We both swore we would NEVER climb Elephant Tusk again, been there, done that, no need to do it again – on the way out the park, we gave old ET the one finger salute several times, both in defiance and in respect - probably just a little more respect in a “F-you, you kicked our ass” sort of way. That was October of 2004, it is now August of 2007, and we have actually talked about climbing ET again…. Don’t know if we are just stupid, or just intrigued. I don’t know if anyone else has climbed it since then, the only record we have found regarding anyone climbing it, was that someone attempted it in ’06, got stuck and had to be rescued. I guess the only way we will know for sure is to climb it again, find the register at the top, and see if there are any other names after 4 & 5 from McKinney Texas.

Gary and Eddie at the Summit of Elephant Tusk.

The toys of Middle Aged Men - Bois D'Arc Trails 05.31.09

2009-06-01T21:45:00.010-05:00

The other day somebody asked me what “middle age” was. My simple reply was “me”. They just laughed. Then I went and proved it, not by going out and acquiring that bastion of middle-aged men, the corvette… no, that would be way to sensible. I went and bought a dirt bike instead. A toy that is not the standard choice of middle aged men, but the toy of middle aged teenage boys. While I have ridden my GS in some places that most people would probably not ride a motorcycle of that size, I had never ridden a true dirt bike, until a few weeks ago. And I had to have one. If you have been reading this blog, you will know by now that lately we have been frequenting the off-road parks, most commonly – Bois D’Arc Trails. It is a great venue for families and for middle age men to learn how to ride a dirt bike. It seems to have something for everyone, including the experienced riders.

The bike I bought was from a friend of mine, Bret. I have known Bret for over 15 years, in fact we were roommates at one point – and I should probably just leave those times to the history books. Nobody really needs to know the discussions after shooting crown at Champs, or the 2 AM 4x4 excursions in my Xterra. Bret had purchased a 2000 Yamaha XT 350 about a year ago, and painstakingly rebuilt it. He has a lot of blood, sweat and tears into that bike. We were catching up about a week ago, and I mentioned that I was going to buy a dirt bike. He suggested that I buy his as he was looking to move it. And as he said when we finalized the transaction under the twisted wood of the ancient Bois D’Arc tree, “the bike was staying in the family”.

We got out to the park around 10 on Sunday morning. When we got there we met Howard and Price, the owners of the park. These were two of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. They have a really well laid out off road park, and in my opinion are running it right. Parents can take their kids out and not have to worry about them getting run over while they learn or hone their skills. A little later, Dave and Dawn showed up, and around 1:00 Gary, Rachel, and the kids arrived. We had a nice set up under the shade of one of the trees. A little later in the day, Marcus arrived and brought our number to nine. The day was spent riding, talking, eating (thanks Rachel and Dawn for the great eats… AGAIN!), and just hanging out. A great way to spend a hot, sunny, Sunday afternoon in North Texas. Not exactly cruising around in an air conditioned Corvette, but once you were out on the trails trying to tear up your newly acquired Yamaha – you don’t need AC, and you forget exactly how old you are.

for more images of the day click here

Bois D'Arc Trails 05.24.09 part 2 - the ride home

2009-05-26T21:02:00.010-05:00

Upon departing the park for the day, Rachel headed home with the kids and Gary and I decided to take the long way home. The rain earlier in the day had cleared the skies and the evening was crisp and clean. Exemplary riding weather, so we decided to make the most of it by venturing east towards Honey Grove instead of west towards McKinney. We tend to do this when we ride, head off in a general direction that happens to be somewhere in the vicinity of the general direction we need to be going, and like a dog trekking his way across the country to find his home by scent alone, we feel our way back to our origin. This was a perfect evening for such meaningless meanderings. As a T-Shirt I have most eloquently states, “those who wander are not always lost”

Do what you like, like what you do. Life is Good.

Bois D'Arc Trails 05.24.09

2009-05-25T20:55:00.021-05:00

if you want to see more images of the day, click here

Christmas is a wonderful time of year. You may be surprised by what you had really received as a gift…, several months later. While these were not the exact words they were the meaning behind the intent as spoken by Gray Donihoo at the ripe old age of 8. He said to his mom, “I now know why you got me my blue bike (speaking of his electric Razor motorcycle), it was to get me ready for this bike” as he sat perched atop his yellow 50cc Suzuki, wearing a Christmas morning grin that was evident despite his oversized green & white motocross helmet. At the same time, it may be the anticipation of great things that may yet be. Case in point; Remy Nguyen. Remy had never ridden a motorcycle in the 12 years of his active life, but he took to it like a newborn dolphin takes to the water. Like it wasn’t a matter of choice, it was just the natural order of things. His father, Huy, told me more than once that day “he going to be telling his mom he wants one of these”. So who knows, next year MotoLizzie and Remy may be the next champions in their class.

The Sunday before Memorial Day was spent at the Bois D’Arc Tails just east of Bonham Texas. It’s top-secret location down a gravel road off of highway 82. Gary and I took off on our big BMW GS’s, while Rachel led the caravan of Carolyn and Huy. The park is about an hours ride from McKinney and that is part of the fun, the ride out to the park. The great thing about a GS is that you can enjoy the ride to the destination and then enjoy riding at the destination once you get there. The park was a little more crowded than the last time we had been, but as they work on a reservation system it was not overrun. We started to set up in the same spot we did on our first visit, but once we arrived Dave came by and invited us to set up next to them. We found the shade of an ancient Bois D’Arch tree, a tree ripped from the pages of a Harry Potter novel. So much character had grown into the trunk and branches of this shade casting behemoth that if you were to stop and listen, I am certain it would tell you the tales of its years overseeing the countryside of north-east Texas.

Item one on the agenda – get the bikes and gear unloaded from the truck, and get set up for the day. Item two was to get the kids geared up for riding. While Gary and Rachel were getting Lizzy and Gray ready, Lily and Remy immediately got started on the little blue electric bike. The cliché “a kid in a candy store” no longer need apply. Item three, get the camera out and get some shots of the kids doing what kids do. All of the agenda items checked of the list, it was time for the adults to join in on the fun. Dave has just bought his wife a brand new Honda TRX250 four-wheeler. I was making my way around the mini moto-cross track when she stopped and asked me if I wanted to ride it, but at the time, despite having met her the week before, I had no idea who this red and black donned 4-Wheel Moto-Chick was who was asking it I wanted to try out her new wheels. I figured it out when Gary came riding by on the 4-wheeler. It was pretty fun to ride, different in the corners than a bike; you had to lean almost more MotoGP style than MX style.

After taking Gary’s Kawasaki for a couple of spins, I decided it was time to get the big GS out on the motocross track again. It is amazing how well a 1200cc, 105 HP, 500 lb motorcycle can handle a MX course. You just can’t be afraid to give it some gas in the corners and let the back wheel slide into place. Until our first outing at Bois D’Arc a couple of weeks ago, I had never ridden a dirt bike, and the more I ride the lighter, more agile dirt bikes, the better I handle the GS off-road. I’m not going to taking home any trophies, but it is quite a feeling to navigate a 500 lb monster around a course designed for 300 lb quarter horses. As Gary once put it, it’s the Hummer of motorcycles. All in all, I made three runs on the course throughout the day on the big GS, the rest of the days runs were on Gary’s 250 Kawasaki.

In the mean time, the Donihoo and Nguyen kids traded off riding the smaller bikes. While the kids got rest, the bikes saw continuous non-stop combat. That is until Mother Nature stepped in and blessed the day with an hour-long rain shower. It was almost perfect, about the time the rain started moving in, just about everyone started packing up and heading out. We hunkered under the protection of our guardian Bois D’Arc, and rode it out. After the line of storms made their way through and headed off to ruin someone’s Sunday afternoon soccer game, we had perfect weather and the park almost to ourselves. It was time for more dirt to be devoured by the tires of the relentless machines. The track was great after the rain, a little slick at first, but after about an hour of being warmed by the afternoon sun, it had just enough tack to keep the wheels from sliding and dust from kicking. The kids hit the smaller motocross track and Gary and I headed out to the big course for a make shift contest. We each took a turn riding the course and timed each other. I had no idea if we would be minutes apart or seconds apart. Gary ran the course in 3:47 and I ran it in 3:58.

Elizabeth wanted to ride the woods course around the park so Gary took off with her. Remy and Lily were on the smaller bikes while Gray was taking a rest, snacking on some fresh cherries. I have to hand it to Rachel and her mom Carolyn, the food was great. Several years ago, I had a Honda Odyssey, kind of a dune buggy/motorcycle type vehicle. When I would venture out to ride it, I dined on beef jerky and cheetos…. Never anything like the feast we had on Sunday. Moments later Gary returned from the woods course with MotoLizzy arriving shortly thereafter. Apparently Lizzy had taken a spill while attempting to cross a giant mud puddle. But did it stop her? Did the North American continent stop the glaciers from rolling across it and prevent the last ice age? The glaciers were like that soft crunchy ice you get at Dairy Queen when compared to Lizzy’s will to ride. No sooner did she return and she was ready to go again. Gary had to get Gray’s bike situated for him, so it was my turn to lead MotoLizzy over the river and through the woods. What great fun. I do not have any kids, but riding with Elizabeth through the woods made me understand what everyone had always said about this being a family sport. The entire day was that way, the kids enjoyed it, the adults enjoyed it, and even the mom’s and grand mom’s who did not even ride enjoyed the day. All of you Santa’s out there should take heed. If you want something that is fun for the whole family take the advice of a wise 8 year old.

click here for more images of the day

Big Bend September 2006 - Day 3

2009-05-21T22:15:00.013-05:00

Day 3

It seem that every time Gary and I go to Big Bend we do something on the “extreme” side. The most extreme was climbing Elephant Tusk, I will post that story some day, but on this trip we did a rather unique hike. The most popular hike in all of Big Bend National Park is the Lost Mine Trail. I had done this hike several times when I was a kid, but ironically as many times as Gary had been to Big Bend, he had never hiked the Lost Mine Trail, or at least not all of if. You do have to hike a portion of it to climb Casa Grande, which we have done a few times. The Lost Mine Trail is 5 mile round trip day hike that starts off Green Gulch road about a mile or so from the Basin. After a great day of riding the day before, we looked over our maps and decided that we were going to try something different. We knew that the end of the Pine Canyon trail supposedly ended at the end of the Lost Mine Trail – from opposite directions, the difference being about 2,000 ft of elevation, and a waterfall. We figured we could hike to the end of the Lost Mine Trail, then scale down the precipice to the creek bed that led to the Pine Canyon pour off, climb down the waterfall, and perhaps have lunch at the waterfall. We would then reverse our course and hike back up the waterfall back to the Lost Mine trail and back to where we had parked our bikes at the trailhead. A rather simple plan, just maybe a 5 –10 mile hike – or so we thought.

Everything started out great. A good breakfast at the lodge, grabbed some lunch items and water at the Basin store, mounted our bikes and headed off to the trailhead.

bikes parked in front of Casa Grande at the lost mine trail trailhead

We got started on the trail around 10:00, the weather was great, sunny and not to hot for September 12th. There were a few low clouds trapped in the basin that morning, waiting for the heat of the day to come along and melt them away. It made for some really scenic vistas. That is one thing about Big Bend, there is such an array of varying landscape; there are those who love it while others just don’t get it. Gary and I are among those who cannot get enough of it.

The hike up the trail started off great, for the most part the Lost Mine Trail is covered by the shade of numerous ponderosa pines, juniper and other tress prevalent in the Chisos. This is perhaps why it is one of the most popular trails in the park. It is a very well developed trail, not our usual fare, but we did take advantage of the resting points along the way.

One of the best view of the southern part of the park is from the promontory at the top of the lost mine trail. From here you can see Pine Canyon, Juniper Canyon, Elephant Tusk, and parts of the south rim.

We had made it to this point with relative ease. Now the real fun would begin. We paid our respects to our nemesis, Elephant Tusk and found a good spot to start our decent from the promontory. Climbing in Big Bend is not exactly recommended due to all of the loose rock, but climbing down from the lost mine trail was an easy task. While we did not know exactly where the creek bed would be, we figured it had to be at the lowest point between the two peaks and sure enough as soon as we got there, we found the creek. While we had never done this hike before, Gary had climbed up the pine canyon pour off once before and up the dry creek bed a little way. We figured it would be a really easy hike to climb down the creek bed to the pour off – however…. August and September is the rainy season in Big Bend, and while it was not a raging rapid, this was definitely not a dry creek bed. It was a very full flowing stream. There simply was no way to hike down the middle of it. And as this was not an established hiking trail where paths had been cut, bushwhacking was in order. And major bushwhacking it was as the vegetation was quite thick. We do a lot of plowing our way through heavy thick vegetation in Big Bend; cross-country hiking is one of those things that Gary and I are both on the same wavelength on. We both like to head out to nowhere, off trail and just see what we can find. And we find some of the coolest stuff, things that we are pretty sure only a very select few park visitors ever see, or maybe even care to see – but it is part of what we enjoy about this very unique National Park. However plowing through heavy vegetation while negotiating a stream, is not exactly something you get accustom to doing in a desert and it was a bit of a bitch. It was during this stream traversing, machete wielding, cross-country bushwhacking that I met up with my old friend, the Death Cactus…. What I lovingly refer to as the death cactus is some hybrid form of the agave havardiana on steroids. This thing is about shin high, has 2” long spikes on stalks that are the size of overgrown daggers jutting up out of the ground. This is an evil plant, seeded to earth by satan himself for the sole purpose of inflicting pain upon the lower extremities of backcountry hikers named Eddie. If you were to fall upon one of these hydra-headed daggers of the devil, it would be an instant pain ridden ticket to the beyond. Luckily for me, it just happened to embed its two-inch long, 1/8” wide spike into the meat of my shin. Of course, being satanic in nature it does not simply stab, but rather stabs and then conveniently breaks off below the skin so that no matter how much effort of digging and prodding are attempted, there is no removing the scorpion of Hades’ stinger and it just writhes is way deeper and deeper into the flesh in which it has made its new home. Of all the things I love about Big Bend, I HATE the death cactus. Of course this happened about 3 miles or so into the hike, and little did I know at the time, today’s venture would be close to 20 miles. After years of hiking, climbing, camping, driving, riding, miles from any other human contact, you learn that you are pretty much on you own and have to put mind over matter and just move on. The same goes for pain or discomfort. Not only is it a matter of survival, it is a matter of enjoyment. While the toothpick buried in my leg was increasingly painful with each step, I did not want it to ruin the enjoyment of the hike, so on we went.

something unusual in Big Bend - a flowing stream

I don’t remember how many miles it was from where we had climbed down from the bluff at the end of the lost mine trail and the pine canyon pour off, but we got to the pour off around 3:00. The climb down was relatively easy, we had climbed up it a few times before, we knew the route, and while the decent was not without its risk, it was quite fun. When we got to the bottom we were treated to a rare sight. A waterfall in a desert oasis. There are only a few times a year when there is enough water in the park for the waterfall to be flowing on a bright sunny day and it was quite an experience. The only thing that detracted from it were the mosquitoes… They were not stupid, but they made their presence known.

We devoured the lunch we had purchased at the Basin store and decided that since the creek bed was a full flowing stream, reversing our course was not a very good option. Our revised itinerary would be to hike the two miles out the pine canyon trail to the pine canyon road and then try to find someone along the road with whom we could hitch a ride back to our bikes. The hiking from this point on was very easy. Pine Canyon is a very well developed trail, and once we hit the road it was even easier. The problem was that after the 2-mile hike out of pine canyon, we hiked the entire 8 miles of backcountry road and probably 2 or 3 miles of paved park road before we saw our first car. Luckily the car we saw stopped. The folks that stopped to give us a ride were the only other human beings we had seen the entire day. It was an older couple we had met hiking down the Lost Mine Trail within the first 30 minutes we were hiking up it. They recognized us and stopped. Some 10 hours and probably 20 miles later we ran across each other again. They were a little confused as to how we got to where we were from where they had seen us the last time they saw us. We explained to them “that’s what we do”, I think they thought we just went through some sort of wormhole, went in one end of the Chisos, and then came out the other. We had a nice air-conditioned ride back in their Lexus, they dropped us off at the lost mine trail trailhead and went on their way. Our lone BMW motorcycles departed the trailhead parking lot and we rode off into the sunset just in time to make dinner at the Basin restaurant. Another fantastic Big Bend adventure under our belts, and another great Big Bend story to tell.

Day 4 was our day of departure. We got up early and headed out of the park. It was rather chilly that morning, and I remember wearing the liner in my jacket and running the heated grips. We rode to Marathon and had breakfast at the Gage. After the Gage, the liners came out and it warmed up a bit. We made pretty good time on the way home, taking the same route home as we did on the way to the park. My leg was hurting, but again, I did not let it ruin my trip. When I got home I went to the doctor and she found that the spike was 2” deep into my leg. It took her almost a half hour to dig it out, but man did it feel better. She gave it to me in a sealed bottle of alcohol as a souvenir of my adventure.

This was a great trip, riding and hiking what more could you ask for.

A few more images of the kids jumping at Rocky Ridge Ranch

2009-05-19T15:36:00.011-05:00

Dave acting like a big kid...

Show-um how its done!

Elizabeth about to launch!

Gray's first jump..

Elizabeth learning how to use the throttle on approach...

My first day of Dirtbiking

2009-05-18T01:43:00.006-05:00

It was a fantastic day and and i really enjoyed that. i had only 2 crashes with some minor damages to the bike and no injury to me.
Thank you Gary for the ride, drinks, food, steak and teaching riding classes.

I won the contest:!!!

2009-05-18T01:33:00.003-05:00

I would love to thank every one of you from bottom of my heart for voting for me. (please vote just once) ...Yes, i did bust my a.. on Thursday night at 3am while practicing in the neighbor hood. i made my bike flip 180 degree and land upside down right in front of me. i bend the clutch lever and

broke the tail light.

I was not injured- this time.
your confident in me means a lot to me. Please vote for me. I wont disapoint you:)

Rocky Ridge May 17,2009

2009-05-17T21:20:00.012-05:00

We went to Rocky Ridge north of Decater Texas this past Sunday. It was a perfect day. Gary, Rachel, Elizabeth, and Gray Donihoo, Rego, Marcus, Dave and Eddie were all there. Here are some pics

Big Bend September 2007 - day 2

2009-05-14T21:15:00.024-05:00

day 2

There are over 150 miles of back country roads in Big Bend National Park. These roads range from gravel roads to 4x4 high clearance vehicle roads. Today we were going to take a road that is not classified as a “park road” as it is not listed in any of the park information, but it was a back-country road nonetheless. This was the Terlingua Ranch Road. The road is about 25 miles long and links the main park road just south of the Persimmon Gap entrance station and Terlingua Ranch. Terlingua Ranch is a large bit of property off of Highway 118 just north of Terlingua TX. I would not call it a housing community, maybe a desert community.

After breakfast at the Chisos Basin restaurant, we loaded up our bikes with tools, and a few emergency supplies (just in case…). Stopped by the Panther Junction store for some water and snacks for the day, and headed back towards the park entrance to pick up the Terlingua Ranch road.

dual "dual-sports" at the Basin Lodge

road between Panther Junction and Prisimmon gap (on the way to the Terlingua Ranch Road)

just after pulling onto the Terlingua Ranch road

Other than a few gravel roads around McKinney, and several miles on some “right out of Deliverance” back woods gravel road we found on a trip up to Broken Bow Oklahoma, this was the first “off-road” type road I had ever ridden on a motorcycle. It’s a lot different than driving them in a 4x4 truck. But I did my research, read a bit about it, and was ready to take it on. The road was a lot of fun in the beginning. Not very technical, not any real steep climbs. It was a road made through the desert with a grater. Definitely rougher than a gravel road, but not anything that would require a 4x4.

riding the Terlingua Ranch Road

About 10 miles into the 25 mile long road we ran into a patch of deep sand. A “3 mile long” patch of deep, grainy sand. And it SUCKED! What my research said about riding in sand was to get your weight back and keep your speed up. So that’s what I did, or at least tried. I was watching Gary in front of me and he was more or less paddling in the sand. I tried that for a while, but it was wearing me out. I remembered what I had read, shifted my weight back as far as I could and opened the throttle. It was actually working; I caught up to Gary, and then passed him on the left. I was going probably around 20 MPH, and a dozen or so yards after navigating through the sand around Gary, the front wheel started swaying back and forth in the sand. I held it for just a moment, but then the handlebars went all the way to the right, the bike fell to the left taking me with it. I lay there for a moment, and Gary ran up to pull the bike off of my leg. My leg was actually fine – probably because I was wearing good quality riding boots, but it was my ribs that hurt. I got up, rubbed some dirt on it, and we had a good laugh about it. Gary said that I came flying by out of nowhere, front wheel swaying like flag on the forth of July, and then WHAM, hit the ground. Actually pretty funny when you think about it. I now hold the honor of being the first to bust ass off road – a title I would continue to enhance on future off-road excursions.

shorly after busting my ass in the sand - notice the busted turn signal

parked at the Terlingua Ranch Lodge

We did not spend any amount of time at the Terlingua Ranch Lodge. We though we might be able to eat lunch there, or stop for a drink or a snack. However none of these facilities were open. While it is called a Lodge, it is really just a group of cabins you can rent if staying in the area and visiting the park. It seemed they had some nice facilities, but September is not exactly peak season, so a lot of the lodge was not open. At least not that we could tell. We did hang out in the office/gift show, grabbed a cold drink and a candy bar, rested a bit and got back on the road.

The road heading west between the park and hwy 118 slowly turned from gravel, to badly paved, to a pretty nice little road to ride. We then took 118 south toward Terlingua. We stopped by the ghost town for a little while and then found a place to eat.

Before we left Panther junction that morning I noticed that Gary’s front tire seemed a little low. He said that he noticed that the bike was handling a little “squishy” coming down green gulch towards the park headquarters. We checked the tire pressure and it was down to about 15 PSI. We aired it up before heading out. After lunch we noticed that the tire was low again. We asked around about anyone who could fix it, and were told of a guy who worked on BMW bikes. Of all things, of all places, there was a BMW Mechanic in Terlingua Texas. We went by the store front, but were told we needed to head back up 118 to Terlingua Ranch entrance #5. We headed that way, took entrance 5, and proceeded down another grated desert road toward CycleTek. This is when we met Ralph. Ralph is the local motorcycle/small engine mechanic. He had a really nice shop out in the middle of the desert. We have been to Terlingua a few times since this trip, and every time whether on the porch in front of the Starlight, or meeting him somewhere along the road for a couple of tubes and a compact air compressor, it seems we have seen Ralph every time since then. Ralph is a motorcycle rider’s best friend in the Big Bend country. If you rode a dual sport down to Big Bend, Ralph will even sell you a set of “cheap off-road tires” and change them out for you. That way you could ride more street oriented tires to Big Bend, change to knobbies and ride around Big Bend, then change back for the ride home.

CycleTech

Ralph got the wheel off, found the spike that was in the tire, replaced the wheel and got us back on our way. The day before when we were riding along 177, we had pulled off to the side of the road for something and then kind of road off pavement along the side of the road for a while. Later when we stopped we noticed a big thorny vine that had attached itself to Gary’s engine guard. Well... apparently it attached itself to the front tire too. The leak was so slow that we did not notice it until the next morning.

After our repair job to the bike, we were ready to ride hwy 170. Hwy 170 is one of the most scenic rides/drives in Texas. It follows the Rio Grand River from Terlingua to Presidio. The road snakes it way along the river over rises and falls. It is kind of boring between Terlingua and the Big Bend Ranch State Park, but once you start riding the part of the road that runs through the park, it is spectacular. The images below do not even begin to describe the beauty of the landscape that engulfs you as you travel along this winding uninhabited roadway.

As we were riding170 prior to getting to the really scenic part, Gary got quite a way in front of me – and it happened again…. This time it was a boarder patrol cop in a pick up truck. He was heading east as we were heading west. And damn-it, if we were not exceeding the speed limit again. On came the lights, the pick up truck got right behind Gary. He pulled over and so did the cop. I figured I had learned my lesson the day before. So I did not stop right where Gary was pulled over, but rather a hundred or so yards in front of them. But that did not work, and the cop summoned me to join the ticket party. This time I was thinking “what the hell”, Gary was speeding not me. But I guess the LEO rules of physics state that if motorcycle N is exceeding the speed limit, and motorcycle X is accompanying motorcycle N, then motorcycle X must also be exceeding said speed limit. (N>SL) (N+X) = X>SL, I think that is how Einstein wrote the equation when he was determining the other law of the universe. The cop took our drivers license back to his truck and was calling them in. Shit, we are getting a ticket. Then the Gods smiled… A blue van drove past us heading east, the cop immediately pulled up to our position, called us to the passenger side window, handed our license back saying “ just slow down a bit”. He then spun the pick up truck around and started chasing the blue van. We continued on our way having dodged another encounter with the law.

We traveled the road a few miles past Lajitas. Stopped in Lajitas to visit the beer drinking goat mayor, however the mayor was not taking an audience. In fact, from the looks of it, the mayor was no longer in office. After Lajitas, we decided that we were not going to ride all the way to Presidio, and started heading back towards Terlingua. Just a few hundred yards west of where the Boarder Patrol cop had pulled us over, we noticed that a state trooper had joined him and they still had that blue van pulled over. They had that van pulled over for 2 – 3 hours. We can only speculate what must have gone on after our encounter with the cop, but there was definitely something going on.

We road back into Terlingua and headed to the Starlight for dinner and a beer. The Starlight is a bar/restaurant in Terlingua. Back in the town’s heyday, between the 20’s and 40’s, the Starlight was an open air theatre. Terlingua was a big mercury mining town and prospered during that time. However after the electronic fuse was invented for bombs just after World War II, the town became abandoned, as mercury was no longer needed to detonate bombs. The town along with the Starlight Theatre became a ghost town. The only time there is any real population in Terlingua is during the annual chili cook off.

A long porch connects the trading post and Starlight. This is where locals and visitors sit in the evening, watch the sunset to the east, and exchange stories. The sunset to the east is a beautiful thing. The Chisos Mountains are to the east of Terlingua, you can watch the evening light shimmer on the volcanic range as it makes its way through the spectrum. Sunsets in Big Bend are magnificent. Because the trading post / Starlight are just about the only functioning buildings in the town, it actually becomes rather crowed between the locals and park visitors. We had a hamburger and a beer and then went and sat on the porch for a little while. Just about sunset we headed back to the park and the Chisos Mountain lodge. It was a great and eventful day of riding, one of the best I had ever experienced.

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 8

2009-05-13T12:23:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcyble Odyssey - Part 7

2009-05-13T10:12:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 6

2009-05-13T02:19:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 5

2009-05-13T01:46:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 4

2009-05-13T00:54:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 3

2009-05-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 2

2009-05-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

The Road Home - A Motorcycle Odyssey - Part 1

2009-05-12T21:19:00.000-05:00

Big Bend September 2007

2009-05-12T18:26:00.000-05:00

Not to keep posting old shit on here, but this is a trip Gary and I took back in September of 2006

Day 1

It was my first multi-day trip on my new bike a 2006 BMW F650GS. I had just purchased it a little over a month earlier. Gary and I were itching for a trip out to Big Bend, and as we both had new bikes we decided to ride. We each bought some type of luggage for our bikes as neither of us had any. More less just stuff we could strap to the back of the bikes. We bought some spare tubes, parts etc... got our gear packed and headed out on a Sunday morning. I can't remember exactly what time we set out, but I think it was about 08:30 in the morning. Our route out of town was 380 to 35 to 820 to 20 through Ft Worth. We wanted to avoid major highways so we pulled onto hwy 277 in Abilene, heading towards San Angelo.

Gary waving hello Hwy 277 south of Abilene

The ride between McKinney and San Angelo was pretty uneventful. I was not real experienced riding at the time, so departing Interstate 20, and all of the 18 wheel semi's that were creating a big turbulant wind tunnel, was more than welcome to me. The main thing I remember about San Angelo was the huge windmills just southwest of the city. I had seen these things on previous trips to Big Bend, but this time we rode right through them. You know they are big, but don't realize how bit they really are until you are right by them. I mean the blades are the size of a commercial jet liner.

We had taken Hwy 67 west out of San Angelo, other then the windmills there is really not a lot to see. But when riding, the environment around you adds to the experience regardless of whether or not it is some scenic route. For me it was great, cruising along at 70-75, just watching the road, enjoying the solitued of what being on a vehicle by yourself brings, and watching Gary a just little ahead of me.Some times you are enjoying the ride some much, you have to commit it to more than just the memoirs of you mind. You have to capture it in a 70 MPH Self Portrait....I was riding around 75, I think at the time Gary must have been cruising around 70 or so - as I had crept a little less than a half mile ahead of him when I saw the state trooper.... SHIT! the trooper turned around and was right behind me. Then the thing that has made your heart drop into you stomach since the day you first learned to drive..... The Lights Came On... The first thing I thought of was that I had not gotten my MC endorsement yet - oh, that's not good. After the trooper pulled me over, Gary came riding up and stopped not to far from us. As the officer was checking my license, insurance, etc... he gestured for Gary to come over as well. I though what the hell is that, I was like a half mile ahead of him, Gary was not speeding, I was. It all turned out in the end. I was not an ass to the cop, nor was he toward me. The three of us talked for a little while, just about riding and general Big Bend country bullshit. He gave us our licenses back, told us to keep the speed down a little and we all went on our way. He was a fine example of a Texas Law Enforcement Officer. Seriously, I remember thinking he was just a normal guy like the rest of us. He just wanted to watch our speed on the empty stretch of hwy 67 between San Angelo and Ft. Stockton.

Once we got to Ft. Stockton we were getting hungy again, riding quickly wore off the Wataburger lunch we had consumed some hours earlier. The date was September 10, 2006 - a Sunday, and the Cowboys were playing. So we stopped at the Ft Stockton Pizza Inn for dinner and to watch the game, or at least a portion of it.

We were weary...

... and beery.

After pizza, a brewski, and watching the Cowboys, it was time to head south on 385 towards Big Bend National Park. Ft Stockton to Marathon is about an hours ride, just as we were fininshing up our pizza and beer (just one since we were riding), it looked like rain was in our immdiate forcast. So before we left Ft. Stockton, we put on our rain gear. It would rain off an on for the next 3 hours. At one point the rain had stopped long enough to reveal a blast of color from the clouds above.

If you look close, you can see that this is actually a double rainbow.

We rode the next few hours between summer thunderstorms that were building up in the evening. I was a little dissapointed as I knew the road between Marathon and the park starts twisting, turning, rising and falling - and empty. I was really looking forward to riding that part of the road, and luckily for us - when we got to that part, the road was dry, and the riding was excellent.

We normally camp when we go to Big Bend. This trip however we were staying at the Chisos Mountain Lodge. We really did not have our bikes equipped yet for camping. I had not purchased my Jesse Luggage yet, and all we had were tail bags to strap to the back. Plus, after riding all that distance, in addition to the riding we were going to be doing, we decided that the lodge was a better choice for this trip. There was not too much rain as we entered the park and rode from Prisimmon Gap to Panther Junction, however once we turned onto Green Gulch road into the Basin, it started to rain again. Green Gulch is a amazingly scenic road, you can not drive it fast, or really ride some of the hairpin turns to fast. We hit the basin road about 15-20 minutes before 9 PM, so it was dark, and it had started raining again. As far as riding goes, I remember that for me, this was about as scary as it got on a motorcycle. But I just road the wet hairpin turns slowly in the dark and after a while, we pulled into the Basin. We checked in at the office that doubles as the Basin resturant/gift shop, and then parked our bikes. We had rode about 550 miles and had arrived safely at our destination.

As we were unpacking the bikes and getting situated in the room, we ran across a group of Germans who were kind enough to share a few beers with us. We sat up and talked to them for a while and then called it an evening. We were ready to do some more riding in the morning.

Day 2 to come...

Eddie's Colorado Trip - July 2007

2009-05-10T11:18:00.000-05:00

I wrote this over a year ago, but never really did anything with. Warning... this is a long post.

Eddie's Colorado Trip July 2007

Average MPG – 70.08 MPG
High Point – 94.13 mountain roads (probably not exceeding 60MPH)
Low Point – 56.22 highway speeds (80+ MPH) between Amarillo & Vernon TX
Total Fuel Cost – 134.42
Total Miles – 2,744 miles

A trip of a lifetime, an epic journey, Chasing Shadows… well maybe it was not any of those, but to me it was a little mini adventure. An 11-day solo bike ride from McKinney Texas to Estes Park Colorado and back – the “long way round” so to speak. I would not get to Estes Park from the east like I have dozens of times before, but rather from the west. I really had no plans; I just wanted to ride through Ouray, other than that - no other route planned out. I have a good friend of the past 20 years or so who lives in Estes Park. The plan was to be at Bill’s house on the Big Thompson River some time on Wednesday, and I had 5 days to get there.

Preparation for the trip was pretty uneventful, other than the calamity 3 days before my departure. I had just installed my Jesse bags a week earlier, and the Wednesday before I was to leave; I put my bike up on the center stand and was lubing the chain etc… Went to roll the bike off the center stand like I have done dozens of time before, I don’t know if it was because it was the first time I did it with the Jesse’s installed and I was standing in a different position or what, but down went the bike. Right up against my truck. The fall busted the side view mirror clamp and the windscreen. I immediately looked for the rewind button on the remote… Luckily the BMW dealership was able to get another clamp overnight and the Honda dealership another Givi windscreen overnight – so the day before I left, I was back in business.

As far as riding experience goes, I was departing almost exactly a year after I bought the bike. One year and 7 days later to be exact. This is my first motorcycle, so that 1 year and 7 days includes all of my riding experience, and in that year I had logged 8,700 miles. So, on this trip alone, I would add to my riding experience by almost 1/3. My previous long rides were McKinney to Broken Bow OK, about 400 miles or so (single day), and then a trip to Big Bend that totaled about 1,300 miles (on and off road). Both of those rides were with Gary. Gary is an experience rider who, although I had always thought about buying a bike, is really the one who finally got me to actually do it. He is also responsible for teaching me pretty much everything I know about riding, safety, etc… He has always been good at telling me if I am doing something wrong or dangerous – and without being an ass about it. Like me, he also has a BMW F650GS, and when I had my garage mishap he immediately offered to take the parts off of his bike so I could use them on my trip. I learned a lot about riding from Gary, but for this trip I would be alone. He made suggestions, and I listened. It also helps that Gary and I have made several trips to Big Bend together and climbed a peak called Elephant Tusk once (a whole other story). As far as any evidence we can find – we are only the 2nd group to reach the summit, and only one group has summited since. So I guess the point is, I trust him. We went for a short ride and a couple of beers a few days before my trip and talked a little about it. I think it was that conversation that Gary said I should go through Aspen. He is a photographer, had spent a few days shooting a wedding in Aspen a while back and said it was a really cool town. So, Aspen was added to my potential itinerary.

The Friday before I left, I got home from work called my Mon & Dad, finished packing, and went over a few last minute checks on the bike. I had arranged for my ex-wife, Sandy, to pick up my mail and check on my house while was gone – so I gave her a call just to go over a few last minute things. Everything was in order, and I was all set to head out on my journey.

Day 1
Saturday July 14, 2007
McKinney, TX – Dumas, TX
423 miles

I had planned on leaving the house pretty early. I had to take my dog to the vet to be boarded and they did not open until 0800 on Saturday morning, so I knew I was not going to be able to leave to early. But I figured I would be on the road by 0830 – 0900 for sure. Well, things don’t always go as planned. I already had the Jesse’s packed, but I needed put my tail bag on the bike and then my tent, etc… When I bought the Jesse luggage, I did not get the rack mounts for the top of the bags – thinking I would wait to see if I needed them. When it came time to mount my tent, etc… I wish I had purchased the mounting racks. As it were, I would have strapped the tent to the top of the tail bag along with the other miscellaneous gear, but it started to get awkward and bulky. Ultimately I decided to leave the tent, sleeping bag, pads, etc… at home. I had not really planned on camping, but was just going to take them in case I could not find a hotel, motel, B&B, or somewhere else to stay. I was taking off each day without knowing where I was going to end up at the conclusion of that day so I thought bringing the camping gear would be a good idea. But I really was not heading into the Australian outback, it was Colorado, I figured I would certainly be able to find a place to stay no matter where I ended up. So, ditching the tent and camping gear was the most logical course of action. In the end it was the correct one, at least for this trip. Future trips I will probably camp, but I am glad I stayed where I did on this trip – I met some really nice people at the places I stayed. Also getting rid of the camping gear freed up a lot of room in the Jesse bags, everything was easily accessible. All of my clothes and everything I would need to take into a hotel room with me I kept in the tail bag. The tail bag is a BMW tail bag designed specifically for the F650gs. It attaches and comes off pretty easily and even has a unique feature that converts into a backpack, which makes it very easy to get up and down stairs, into hotel rooms etc… Pretty much everything else, tools, spare tubes, maps, etc… could stay locked in the Jesse’s.

All in all I ended up not leaving the house until after 10:00. At first I was disappointed in my late departure. Then I realized that the entire spirit of the trip was the fact that I had no plans, no destination for the end of each day. The beauty in the trip was that I was going to ride until I felt like stopping and that was where I was going to stay. If I decided to take a different road, then the different road I would take. If the journey meant spending an hour longer than anticipated repacking the bike in the beginning, then the journey had already begun. I was already on my way, and right on time.

Just about the time I was departing, Gary called. I told him I was just heading out. I said something about wishing I had charged my cell phone because it did not have a full charge. He said he had a charger and to stop by. So the first unscheduled stop, Gary’s house – McKinney TX. I got to Gary’s house about 5 minutes or so after leaving my house. He brought out the phone charger, but then I realize I did not have the adaptor for the bike, so it was for naught. Not that it really mattered, my phone had over half a charge and it was not like I was going to be calling anyone before I could charge it that night. About 10:30 or so, I departed Gary’s house and headed west on hwy 380.

One of the things that always amazes me is the camaraderie among riders. That was clearly evident to me on this trip, almost right from the beginning. Even on 380 I felt a connection with the other riders on the road. That is always there with the wave or a nod of the head, but maybe because I had all of the gear on the bike, the other riders knew I was going on a road trip. It’s like the nod or the wave had a little more behind it. Kind of like a “yeah, I wish I was doing that” or “good luck on your trip” because they had “been there - done that”. It was even more obvious to me when I got on I 35 for a short period between Denton and Gainsville. By shear coincidence when I merged onto the highway, I happened to be right by a guy on a big Honda VTX that looked like he was out on a long trip as well. For the 20 or so miles of road heading north we rode together. We did not know each other, really had no idea what each other even looked like under the helmet and gear, but we both just automatically rode together until I headed west on 82 in Gainsville and he continued north on I-35. When I exited, we both gave each other a wave and headed back on our solo journeys.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. It was July in Texas – that equals hot. Luckily I had mesh gear. Olympia Jacket and Pants. Both mesh, so I just wore a t-shirt and underwear underneath and was pretty comfortable. Mesh gloves also kept the air flowing over my hands, my hand guards had not come in before the trip so there was nothing to restrict the air flow there. When I got tired or thirsty I stopped for a drink. I was getting 200+ miles before the low fuel light would come on, so often I would stop just to stretch my legs or get a bottle of water. The first stop was at the Chisholm Trail Mercantile in St. Jo. It is a small motorcycle apparel shop in a little town called St. Jo. If I remember right, St. Jo used to be a stop along the old Chisholm trail back in the Texas cattle drive days. It’s kind of a neat little town, there is a unique “yard sculpture” a couple of miles south of town. Kind of a mimic of the Cadillac’s at Cadillac Ranch out by Amarillo. I had been to the yard sculpture before, but did not stop this time. This time I just stopped by the Mercantile for a coke, and to talk to the folks that worked there. They cater more to the Harley crowd, as does most of the motorcycle world. But the girl behind the counter actually remembered me. I had been through there a few months earlier and had a flat (out by the yard sculpture), I had gone back by the mercantile to see if they knew of anyone that could help (now I always ride with a spare tube and tire irons…). Anyway, that is another story too, but she remembered me from that – and that I rode a BMW. They seemed to be fairly impressed that I was going on a 10 day ride to Colorado, that kind of surprised me. I figured that they would get a lot of people riding through. But I guess they mostly just get weekend riders, after all, that’s what I was doing the first time I went by there. I drank my coke, chatted for a while and headed back on my trip. As I headed out north of Amarillo, I noticed a storm starting to build up to the west, it was starting to get to be around 7:30 PM, and I was getting hungry, so I decided to make my first overnight stop in Dumas Texas.

As I rode into Dumas, there was a plethora of motels to stay at. That kind of surprised me. I had been through Dumas several times before when driving to Colorado, but had never done more than stop there for gas. Apparently Dumas has become some sort of jumping off point for people going to Colorado or New Mexico. Although I can’t figure out why, it really is not all that close. I rode around to a few of the different hotels and that is when I got my first sticker shock of the hotel prices. I have traveled a lot, but usually for work and or on vacations with my wife (or ex-wife now…). For work the arrangements are all pretty much made and I don’t usually worry to much about the prices, they are corporate approved and chosen hotels. When my wife and I traveled, I expected to pay a little more for a hotel because we wanted to stay at a decent place. But this was just me, by myself, hell I was ready to camp. I really did not care. All I wanted was a bed and a place to take a shower in the morning. I was thinking I could certainly find something in the $50 - $60 per night range. Well, not quite so much the case there buddy… Everything was $100+ per night. But I guess that is what you get for traveling in peak Vacation season, but once I got past the sticker shock I was okay. I did end up finding better deals during the trip that kind of evened everything out. So, I got my first hotel room, got back on my bike and started to head to the room. That’s when I dropped my bike… Damn, it was embarrassing. I did not drop it hard, just kind of laid it down softly and picked it right back up. But immediately I was like “damn, I hope no one saw that”. I was pulling in the parking lot the opposite direction of the parking spaces, saw a spot next to a Harley that I was going to pull into. Was making a pretty sharp turn to the left and that is when I realized all of that extra weight on the back of the bike made it a lot more top heavy than what I was used to at low speeds. So, although it was embarrassing, it was really a very valuable lesson learned and a no-cost lesson at that. The only thing hurt in the fall was a little bit of my pride. I had just rode into town after 400 miles of relative ease and was probably feeling a little confident in myself. This was probably Gods way of telling me that I had better keep things in check. Like the way I would listen to Gary when he would tell me something about my riding. I listened to this as well. I would not ride over confident, even on what seemed to be the simplest of maneuvers.

After I unpacked, I headed out to get something to eat. Cuisine of the evening, K-Bobs. Yum. I think K-Bobs is the staple of any small vacation town or vacation jump off town. Badly cooked steaks and a salad bar, what more could a road weary traveler ask for. I say that a little tongue in cheek, the food was actually really good and I was surprisingly hungrier than I thought I was. After dinner I went back to the hotel and took a look at my maps. Early on I had always figured that my corridor to Colorado would be Trinidad. In fact, my original plan was to try to make it all the way to Trinidad in the first day. But my goal was to not have any plans other than being at Bill’s house in Estes Park some time on Wednesday and not making it to Trinidad on the first day was falling right into that plan. I did see a road out of Trinidad called SR-12 that looked interesting, so I figured that once I got to Trinidad I would take SR-12 up to 160. A bit out of the way, but that is what the trip was for. So with that, I went to bed after my first days journey.

Day 2
Sunday July 15, 2007
Dumas, TX – Durango, CO
484 miles

Whereas my first day out was kind of a cloudy day, in fact I thought I was going to be riding through rain on my way out of McKinney… today was more or less cloudless. It was really a beautiful morning. The first order of business after a quick continental breakfast and coffee - courtesy of the hotel, was to go by the Dumas Walmart to buy a toothbrush and contact lens case, which I had conveniently forgot at home. All of my preparation, and I forgot to put these in my bag after using them the morning of my departure. Sleeping in my contacts is not such a big deal, I do that quite often, but brushing your teeth with your finger, well it works but not something you would want to do for 11 days. So, Walmarting was the top of the list, and Dumas had a fine facility. I guess I should also take this opportunity to mention that this morning, or actually the evening before, was my first introduction to “the Fully Dressed Harley”. It was the bike I was going to park next to when I dropped my bike the evening before, but I met the rider, or rather riders, this morning. I now know what they mean by fully dressed – I mean this thing had a recliner on the back end, was almost as long as a car, side bags, top case, stereo, CD, hell there may have even been a microwave and a place to cook jiffypop. I mean this thing was loaded. As far as bikes go, it was the King of the Road. Don’t get me wrong, I am not in any way dissing this bike. It may not exactly be my cup of tea as a solo rider, but for a couple it was the way to go. In fact it may have been more enjoyable for the pillon than the driver. And I get that, if you want your wife or girlfriend to ride with you because you enjoy riding, then you had better make sure they are enjoying the ride just as much as you. Otherwise, the next trip you make, may just be solo again. Although I did not know it at the time, this bike was also the first bike that led me to my adage “every bike on the road is a Harley”, but more on that later.

After my Walmart excursion, I ended up leaving Dumas and heading west on 87 at about 0830. On the outbound leg of the trip this was probably the straightest, most boring part of the ride. It is the same way when driving it in a truck or car too. Sure, riding through northwest Texas can be kind of the same way, but there are numerous little towns to ride through, each one is just a little different and each has its own unique kind of charm to it. Out here, between Dumas and Raton NM, you are pretty much just trying to burn up the miles. There were a couple of interesting things I ran across along this 150 mile or so stretch though. The first was a crop duster about an hour outside of Dumas. I watched him as I was riding west. It was pretty amazing, like an aerobatic pilot but with a purpose. He would do these sweeping turns fly just a few feet off the ground and then straight up, bank again, straight down, pull up at what seemed like the last possible second and make another pass over the cornfield. It looked like he was having a blast. I stopped for a while and took some photos that of course did absolutely no justice to this pilots flying ability. But I think he knew I was watching. After about 15 minutes and about 10 passes over the field, I put my camera away and took off in the same direction as the plane on one of the passes. As I did, I looked over at the pilot and he gave me a wave, like an actor taking a bow at the end of a play. As he flew past, I waved back, and went on my way.

About an hour west of Raton NM, I had settled in at about 75 MPH, kicking back slightly against the tail bag, my feet propped up on my makeshift highway pegs, just kind of humming along on an endlessly straight stretch of highway. Not really thinking of much and truthfully not really paying much attention to anything except what was in front of me and beside me – just king of glancing at the side mirrors from time to time. So I did not notice two bikes approaching from behind. When they did, they passed on the left. Zoom, bike #1 passed. A big GS… then about 2 or 3 seconds later, a Dakar. The guy on the big GS gave the obligatory wave, but the guy on the Dakar, was almost turned sideways when he passed giving me a thumbs up sign. Like me, they were both fully geared, and both on Beemers. Maybe 5 minutes later all 3 of us had pulled off the highway at a rest stop.

We immediately started talking to each other – well after we did what we all stopped at the rest stop to do. While we probably did want to stop and shoot the shit for a moment, there was a reason for stopping, and that reason revolved around consuming mass quantities of liquids on a hot day in July. So after we all had our break, I found out that Jim and Matt had just returned from a 24 day trip to Guatemala, and were on their way back to Denver. They had some really great stories. Jim was a videographer who set up adventure trips and recorded them. He had a website that I checked out when I got back home and he had some pretty cool stuff on it. He seem to know quite a bit about BMW motorcycles, and if I remember right I believe he said that he had either worked for BMW at one point, or maybe worked at a BMW shop – I really can’t remember, as I am writing this 6 months after the fact. Anyway, he checked out my set up and gave me a couple of tips. Mostly I had everything set up right, he just suggested I run my tire pressure a little higher with the addition weight I was carrying. Matt was the guy on the Dakar. A Dakar, is basically the exact same bike as mine. While they are both dual sport, the Dakar is tuned more for off-road than my bike. Bigger front wheel, taller seat, a few other things that make it better suited for off-road handling. But they are both F650gs’. So, Matt and I did a lot of comparing of our bikes. We both had exactly the same tail bag, and like me, he loved it for exactly the same reasons I did. I found out that they had been to Guatemala and back, pretty much incident free. We did not have a lot of time to talk because we all had to get back on the road, but we did spend about 45 minutes or so talking about bikes, rides, etc… I told them that this was my first big, multi-day ride (other than my Big Bend trip). They were very encouraging, and the fact that they had just gotten back from a 24 day ride made me want to get on to my ride even more, and hope that some day I can take off on an adventure like they were just completing.

An hour later I was in Raton NM, a good place to have lunch. And it is just a short hop to the Colorado boarder. As I dined on my Arby’s roast beef sandwich, I looked up and across the street, over in the Denny’s parking lot was none other than the “King of the Road”. Something like 4 hours and 160 miles later, the same bike I was parked next to the night before was parked only 50 yards away. I guess Dumas Texas really is the jumping off point for Colorado and New Mexico.

Trinidad is only about a 30 minute ride from Raton via Raton pass. So finally, I was in Colorado, and I was quite happy to be there. As soon as I got to Trinidad I found SR-12. It was bit difficult, there was some construction going on – there always seems to be construction going on in Trinidad – and there was quite a bit of zig zagging through town to actually get to 12. But once I did, I was IN Colorado. It was a beautiful road and a beautiful ride, a perfect introduction to Colorado after a day and a half of straight flat Texas highways, and I soaked up every single minute of it. My only regret is that I did not stop to shoot any photos. I would pass scenic church after scenic farm, or just scenic scene, I was awed by all of it. Each time I would pass one, I would think “I should have stopped to take a picture of that”, but I would just keep riding. I would figure there would be another opportunity, and I did not want to spoil the ride by stopping all the time. Of course by the end of it all, I ended up with no photos, other then the ones in my memory, and probably those will be the best ones of all. They will remain forever perfect, not to be scrutinized later, or edited in photoshop. Just about every ride in Colorado is memorable, but the first ride down scenic SR-12 is going to remain in my memory for a very long time. Probably because of where it happened to fall during my journey as much as for its grandeur, it was like bursting the bubble. It was like the completion of a building a boat, building it is fun – but now you get to sail it. I was finally here, getting here was a great experience, but now, now the real fun begins.

I don’t remember if it was the night before, or if it was sometime during the day. I think maybe Saturday night. But at one point I talked to Bill and during that conversation, Durango was discussed as being a really good stopping/starting point. When I first decided to take this trip, the only place I really wanted to ride through on my way to Estes Park, was Ouray Colorado. I was not so much committed to staying there, but I at least wanted to ride through. Ouray is along Hwy 550, or “The Million Dollar Highway”. Supposedly back when 550 was built, I guess back in the gold rush days. They took gold dust and sprinkled it in with the material to build the road. So they road became known as the Million Dollar Highway. At least that is one version of where it got its name, and the one I heard. The most famous part of the Million Dollar Highway is between Durango and Ouray. I really wanted to enjoy it, so after talking to Bill we figured it would be best to ride it in the morning, and to do that - the best jumping off point would be Durango. So, at some point during the day I had decided that Durango would be my destination goal. Whether or not I made it that far, I did not know, but that was the goal. I had gained an hour by crossing a time zone, and it did not get dark until late this time of year, so things were looking pretty good.

After I got off of SR-12, I got onto Hwy 160 somewhere well east of Alamosa. I thought about heading over to the Great Sand Dunes National Monument, but at this point I was kind of looking at Durango, then Ouray the next day as a goal, so I figured the Sand Dunes could wait for another trip. So it was on through Alamosa and on towards Durango. It was along 160 that I ran into my first real rain storms. I had run into a couple of showers earlier in the day, but nothing that lasted more than about 5 minutes, and nothing that I just did not ride through – and truthfully felt good for a little relief from the heat. But somewhere between Alamosa and Durango, I actually had to stop and put on rain gear. I was a little nervous. I had ridden through rain before, but never more than just a small shower, or just on wet roads, never through the mountains. When Gary and I had gone to Big Bend back in September of ’06, we ran into a little bit of rain as we approached the park, and then riding into the basin around 2100 that evening the green gulch road was wet. Green gulch can be a little harrowing at night, when wet and on a motorcycle, but you can not really go more than about 15 or 20 MPH in the hairpin S turns even when it is dry, so it is relatively slow going anyway. This was a bit different, this was at highway speeds, in the mountains, in the rain, and with other vehicles on the road. But this was one of the things I was looking forward to in a way. I knew that at some point, probably on this trip – I was going to have to ride in the rain. And although I was not necessarily relishing the thought, I knew it was a part of growing up as a motorcycle rider. I knew that the only way I was going to gain riding experience was to ride and that was going to mean riding on not-so-sunny days. Well, here was my opportunity. I pulled off the road, donned my rain gear, got back on my bike and kept heading west on 160. It rained off and on for the next couple of hours, the first 30 to 45 minutes was on more or less flat road, I started to get into some mountains around Pagosa Springs. Riding the curving mountain roads in the rain was a little scary at first, but I slowly gained confidence in my bike, my tires, and my ability.

I arrived in Durango somewhere around 1900. I found a hotel, and promptly parked next to three Harleys…, by the way did I mention “every bike on the road is a Harley”. Tonight there would be no K-Bobs, only local fare would do. I found a local brewery called Carvers. It was a cool little place on the main strip in downtown Durango. I can’t remember what I had to eat, but I had a really good beer called Colorado Trail Nut Brown Ale. They brewed it there of course, and man that beer was good after 450 or so miles on the road. The perfect way to top off a days ride. Oh yeah, and the waitress was really friendly, and really cute too. I guess that added to the experience, having a friendly, cute waitress sit and talk to you on your first day in Colorado, all in all a perfect first day in Colorado.

Day 3
Monday July 16, 2007
Durango, CO – Glenwood Springs, Co
259 miles

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head – no wait that wasn’t me, that was McCartney, and my hair is way to short for a comb anyway. Today was my first full day in Colorado, and the day that I was going to ride the Million Dollar Highway through Silverton and Ouray. I also noticed that once I started getting into the mountains yesterday, it was quite a bit cooler than riding through Texas, not so much in the valleys, but over the mountain passes it got to be downright chilly. My riding gear is mesh, and while it has liners, the liners were really for cold weather. I could have just worn jeans, but for at least this portion of the ride, I was riding in full gear. So, I decided to wear jeans under my mesh pants, and a long sleeve T-shirt under my jacket. That turned out to be the right combo. Not to hot in the valleys, and not to cold on the mountain passes.

I left Durango at 0900 and headed north on 550, the Million Dollar Highway. Not to long after leaving Durango, I was riding through the San Juan National Forest. The first mountain pass I was to make was the Coal Bank Pass at 10,640 ft. It would not be the highest mountain pass I would make, but it would be the first one of significance, and the first of the 3 signature Million Dollar Highway passes. This was the first time on the trip too that I actually was stopping to take photographs. I had learned the day before from my ride along SR-12, that if I thought an opportunity would present itself again, it usually would not. So if I saw something I wanted to shoot, I stopped – assuming there was a place to safely pull of to the side of road, which there was not always. This was also the first time on the trip that I was riding on winding roads. A lot of them had posted speed limit of 25 – 35 MPH. At home when riding, I know that generally speaking, I can take a turn that is posted at 35 MPH, at around 55 MPH with no problems (not that I am condoning speeding…). However with the added weight of the Jesse bags and the tail bag, I was riding a little more top heavy than I was used to and I was not sure how the bike would handle. Needless to say, I was taking all of the turns a little slower at first.

I reached the Coal Bank Pass summit about an hour and a half after leaving Durango. On the way up to the summit, I had stopped to take a picture, one of the photos I was taking was of my bike with the road and mountain in the background. Just as I was going to take the photo, I noticed another rider coming up the road. I captured the shot of my bike just as he was riding past in the background.

By the time I had reached the second pass, Molas Pass, I had gained confidence in the bike and realized that the added weight was not affecting the handling of the bike at all at speed. At that point, riding the mountain roads became a joy that is indescribable. The bike was handling great, leaning into turns with the mountain rising on one side and falling on the other, often times with no shoulder to speak of at all between me and a sheer drop. It was a rush of adrenaline, kind of intense and relaxing at the same time – is there is a word for that? I don’t know; intaxing…. I would lean into turns and watch for the next turn, all the while the sky, the mountains, the drop, all rushing by. Nothing but concentration and enjoyment, completely different than city riding, but the same dedication to what you are doing, except in stead of paying attention to the person in the suburban on the cell phone in the next lane, you were watching the next turn, the road, the mountain, the side of the roads. Some people think this is too intense, having to pay to much attention to your surroundings and what is going on to enjoy those surrounding, but for me – it enhances everything, brings my awareness to the forefront of my mind. I am keen to everything, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and that to me enhances the experience, it was glorious. I was in beautiful country and in a beautiful frame of mind, I was at peace and full of emotion all at the same time. And it was going to be this way for the next 5 or 6 days.

The first mountain town I rode into was Silverton. I knew about Silverton, saw it on maps when I used to look at all of the 4x4 roads out of Ouray and make plans to take my Xterra up there that never seemed to pan out. I really did not have much expectations, or rather did not give Silverton much thought. It was actually a pretty cool little town. I stopped for a little while to get a bottle of water. Parked next to 3 or 4 Harleys (of course), all of them with Minnesota license plates. I did not spend much time in Silverton, but I think I will have to go back some day.

There was one more pass between Silverton and Ouray – Red Mountain Pass. There are 3 peaks in the Red Mountains, and at least one of them has a mining operation, you can stop and view it as there is a pull-off that overlooks the operation. The three peaks are abundant in iron-oxide which gives them their red color. Between Silverton and Ouray, there was a noticeable increase in the number of motorcycles on the road, and especially for a Monday. I had stopped to shoot a few pictures, when I got back on my bike, I just happened to get back on the road right behind several groups of HD’s. The bike right in front of me was a black Sporster, the rider in black helmet, black leather jacket and black leather riding pants. The rider was also rather petite, and looked really good in the leather riding pants - a “chick rider”. While I do “get” the Harley thing, one thing I have learned about them in the year I have been riding, is that they are slow. Or rather, I think they are really built for the long straight roads of America, not so much the twisting turning mountain roads of Colorado. So while the twisting, turning roads between Red Mountain and Ouray was not quite as fun as the roads prior, the chick HD rider in the tight leather pants in front of me certainly did not make the ride un-enjoyable. I rode into Ouray around 1130. The first thing I noticed was all of the bikes parked along the main thoroughfare, and you may have guessed by now, they were almost exclusively Harleys. But for the fist time in Colorado though, I actually saw another BMW! Two of them, both big GS’s and there just happened to be a parking spot right beside them, so I happily parked next to by big BMW brethren. Just about the time I was securing all of my gear, the Black Betty HD rider, who had parked just a few spaces ahead of me walked by. She had noticed me on the side of the road taking pictures. Because Harleys are slow - I had caught up to her when I got back on the road into Ouray. We talked for a little while, she was meeting her aunt there to have lunch. What a great life, to be able to ride into Ouray for lunch! After speaking to “Betty” for a while, the two GS riders came out and I talked to them for a while. They were both from the area and were just up for the day. They seemed to be impressed that I rode all the way from Texas on a 650, and really liked my Jesse luggage. They kind of confirmed some of what I thought when I first bought my bike. One of the reasons I bought the 650 instead of the 1200 was the weight. I figured that if I were to do any off-road riding, the 650 would be much easier to handle at 430 lbs. They more or less confirmed this and said that the 1200’s were okay for dirt roads, but on some of the mountain roads, they were beasts and that my bike was much better suited. Obviously they said that on long hauls the 1200’s rule, but really I did not seem to have any problems on my bike – but then I have never ridden a 1200, so I don’t have anything to compare to.

I had lunch at a little burger place there on the main strip and then walked around the town for an hour or so. There were some pretty cool hiking, climbing, camping shops. Pretty much everything you would expect. Somewhere around 1300 – 1330, I decided it was time to get back on the road. As I got back to my bike I noticed that the biker chick on the black HD was getting back to her bike too. She asked which way I was heading. I told her North, she was heading back south, the direction she had come from. To bad, it would have been nice to have someone to ride with, and she was cute too. It was not until later that I thought that I really did not have to go north, I really did not have to go anywhere… but at the time, I was headed north towards Estes Park.

After I left Ouray, and descended the foothills, I got into some flatlands. I came to a crossroads, a town called Delta. At this point I could keep heading north, or I could go east. I really wanted to avoid any and every interstate I could, at least until my trip home, which I decided I would probably ride the portion of I-25 between Denver and Raton. Heading north in Delta would have pretty much just taken me to I-70, so east it was. This was the right decision, but I had to cross about 100 miles or so of flat hot Colorado Plaines. And it was hot. I don’t know what the temperature actually was, but I seem to remember seeing on the weather somewhere that it got up to 100 degrees that day, and I believe I was riding through it. It did not start cooling down until I finally got back into the mountains. When I did get back into the mountains it started getting fun again. Not only the mountain roads, but the road was running along a river, and along the river there were river access roads. These roads were dirt roads that left the pavement and took you down to the river. Some of them were just little turn offs, but some of them went down embankments and ran along the river for quite some distance. As I would find one that looked interesting, off I went. I was taking advantage of the dual-sport aspect of my bike. The first couple of access roads I took were no more than little side roads, but then I started to find others that were much more fun from an off road point of view. I probably took 4 or 5 of these, none of them for more than maybe a mile or so off of the main road, but I was having a blast. The problem was that it was starting to get late in the day, and I really needed to start to think about where I was going to stay that night. I stopped and took a look at the map. I thought about Aspen, but then also thought that I would want to be in Aspen during the daytime. Plus Apsen was still quite some distance, and it looked like it was going to start raining again. The other option was Glenwood Springs. The night before, I had talked to Bill, and he had mentioned Glenwood Springs and that it was a cool place. So, Glenwood Springs it would be, or at least that would be where I was headed. About the time I got to Carbondale it started to rain. I Thought about staying the night in Carbondale, but it was only about 15 miles from Glenwood Springs, so I just road up Hwy 82 on to Glenwood Springs.

When I got to Glenwood Springs I started to look for a place to stay. I found a Best Western, but it was some kind of a fancy Best Western called “Antlers”, and it was kind of expensive – at least for what I was looking for. At $135/night (+tax), I thought I would try to find another place. The very first day of my trip as I passed though a couple of the small towns along 287 through Texas, I stopped by a couple of the chain hotel/motels and picked up some of their directories. When I would get to a place I was going to stay for the night, I would look through the directories to see if they had a hotel in that town and then make a few calls to see what the rates were. I found that this worked out pretty good and saved me from riding around to different motels, finding they were more than I wanted to spend and then riding to another. So, I broke out the EconoLodge directory and found one in Glenwood Springs. Or at least it said it was in Glenwood Springs… I called, got a rate for under $90, got directions and proceeded to the motel. As I was heading up I-70, I kept getting farther and farther away from Glenwood springs – and heading in the wrong direction. My plan the next day was to ride through Aspen and that was east, the EconoLodge directions were taking me farther west. About 10 miles outside of Glenwood Springs, I decided to call the hotel again to make sure I did not somehow miss the exit. When I spoke to the girl on the phone, I told here what exit I was at and she said I still needed to go another 10 miles or so west! I asked if they were in Glenwood Springs like the directory said, and she told me “yes, well just outside of Glenwood Springs”…. Yeah, like 20+ miles outside of Glenwood Springs… I’m not sure what kind of B.S. that was, but I decided then and there that I was not going to mess around with this shit any more and just suck it up and spend the $135 at Antlers. I turned around and headed back to Glenwood Springs.

When I checked in to my room at the Best Western Antlers, I parked my bike next to – you guessed it… what every bike on the road is – a Harley. This was a black Electroglide from Minnesota. It was a couple on the bike and of course we struck up a conversation as soon as I pulled in to the parking space. The guy, I don’t remember his name, was about my age, maybe just a little older, but the girl seemed pretty young – maybe mid 20’s. It was her birthday and they were staying at a nice hotel because of it. I’ve got to give it to the Minnesotan’s, they are some riding fools. Of all the states I saw license plate tags for, Minnesota had to have the most, and MN was probably about as far to CO as I had ridden from TX. I would say that the three of us sat outside the hotel room for probably an hour or so just talking before I headed out for dinner. That is one of the things I enjoyed most about the trip, the people I met. I don’t remember all of their names, as in this case. Just that they were really friendly interesting folks.

Glenwood Springs’ historical claim to fame is that Doc Holiday died there. They have this big swimming pool there too, which is spring fed, and where the town gets it name – but I had dinner that evening at a bar called Doc Holidays – so that historical fame of the town sticks in my head. The food at the bar was good, I again attempted to sample the local beer. There were two really cute girls working the bar at Doc Holidays. The first girl who took my order was the classic blond cheerleader type. As asked her if they had Coors Light as I did not see any “mirco-brew” type beers. She looked at me like I was crazy and said “no…”. I asked about local beers (Coors of course being a Colorado beer), and she gave me a Fat Tire out of Ft. Collins. Gotta say, I am not a big Fat Tyre fan. The other bartender was a burnet, not so superficial looking as the cheerleader, and in my personal opinion, better looking. She ended up helping me the rest of the night (and brought me a Coors Light….). She also talked to me quite a bit, and is the one who told me that Glenwood Springs was where Doc Holiday died – hence the name of the bar. Funny thing, the barmaids got better looking as the trip went on, and as I came to find out – they all moved to Colorado from somewhere else. In fact most of the people I met on my trip had moved to Colorado from somewhere else. No wonder most who live in Colorado don’t have a fondness for people from other states.

Day 4
Tuesday July 17, 2007
Glenwood Springs, CO – Frisco, CO
143 miles

I would say that this day was probably the best day of riding overall, and the biggest part of that would be Independence Pass. I left Glenwood Springs around 09:30 and headed southeast on Hwy 82 towards Aspen. Aspen is about 40 miles or so from Glenwood Springs but it took me about an hour and a half to get into Aspen as I took a couple of side roads on my way, just to see the sights. There were some magnificent houses in some very scenic valleys on these roads. No wander people like Kevin Costner choose to build houses around these parts. I guess I got into downtown Aspen a little after noon, parked my bike, shed my gear and started to walk around the town. When I got back to my bike I saw a “parking meter maid” . I told her that I could not get the meter to accept my bank card and she told me to not worry about it, just to move my bike and park between a crosswalk and the last parking spot by the crosswalk. That motorcycles were allowed to park for free in Aspen if they parked in those spaces – a good thing to know about Aspen. It was kind of neat, you would see all of these hot little Aspen women riding around town on their scooters with little baskets on them carrying everything from flowers to groceries. It almost had a European flare to it. All in all, Aspen was a really cool place, there was a water fountain spraying water about 10 feet in the air. All the kids would bring balloons and little balls, place them on the fountain and the fountain of water would lift the balloons up into the air while the kids played in the fountain below them. There was a weird little dude playing a clarinet (or some sort of woodwind instrument) out in front of the sidewalk cafes as very well dress ladies enjoyed their light lunch of finger sandwiches and fish tacos. There were dogs running free, getting cool drinks of mountain stream water from the flower lined babbling brook running beside a cobblestone sidewalk shaded by a row of Aspen trees – and then go back to lounge in their comfy spots beside their owners. It was almost like the Land of Oz, except without taking the hit of acid before hand. It was like this perfect little peaceful world. Ah, what money can buy. I ate lunch in Aspen, but no fish tacos for me, it was a roast beef sandwich and a Coors light. After lunch I walked around for another hour or so, bought a couple of t-shirts and just kind of checked out the part of town closer to the ski mountain. I spent almost 3 hours in Aspen, a well spent side trip.

Right after Aspen is the White River National Forest and about 20 miles south on Hwy 82 is Independence Pass. This was one of the most enjoyable rides of my trip up to Estes Park. Hwy 550 along the Million Dollar Highway through Ouray was great, but it was a relatively wide road, the road through Independence Pass was much narrower, it had a mountain climbing on one side and a river flowing on the other – almost the entire way. And the twisties were much more pronounced. It started to cloud up and even mist just a little, but that did not seem to detract one bit from my enjoyment of the ride up to Independence Pass. It was sheer riding enjoyment. The curves in the road were such that you really did not need to slow down, just lean into them; as soon as you would finish leaning left, the road would have you immediately leaning right, and then to the left again. And it was this way almost the entire way up to the continental divide at 12,095 feet. On the way down the other side of the divide it was just as fun, and there were forest and river access roads. I took two or three of them on the way down. Most of them were just short little jaunts down to the river and back. But I did take one forest access road that went up the mountain on a road that looked like it had not been traveled on since the beginning of summer, it was pretty well overgrown. Overgrown to the point that no matter which side of the road I was riding on, branches were scraping my side cases. The road was a lot of fun, a little steep and rocky in some places, but the bike has much more ability than my skill, and it climbed everything with no problems. There were a couple of small stream crossings on my way up this road, nothing more than a foot or two wide, and then there were a couple of spots where there was just water and mud on the road. I cross through a few of the muddy spots, but came to one, probably a couple of miles up the road that I decided I should not cross and that I was probably far enough down the road anyway to turn back towards the pavement and get heading on my back towards Estes Park. So, I managed to get my bike turned around on the narrow road and started heading downhill. I was doing pretty well for about a mile or so, but then I got to a particularly steep and rock part. I made the carnal mistake – I looked down at where my tire was, and not a where I was going. At the last second I decided, this was not a good spot for my tire to be and tried to cross the road to the other side. Needless to say, I looked down, and down I went. My bike went into the side of the hill, and me into the side of a tree. Neither me nor the bike were hurt, I can’t say the same for my pride… I immediately got up and shook it off, once I realized I was okay and that the bike seem to be okay, I remembered that I should have just kept looking ahead and I probably would have just rolled right through the rocks – as they say, a lesson learned. The next 30 seconds to one minute were a little more nerve racking for me. When I pick up my bike, I always lift it with my legs, basically with my back to the bike. The way the bike was positioned, facing downward, and up against the hill – this was impossible, and even more so with all of the baggage on the bike. I went into a bit of stupor for about 30 seconds when I thought I was not going to be able to get the bike back up. I thought I might actually have to walk a mile down the road, to the pavement, stop someone, get them to hike a mile up the road, and help me lift my bike. Then rationalization set in and I realized that I could just push the bike up forward by pushing up against the hill – bam, bike was back up in no time, problem solved and again, I felt like an idiot for loosing my cool for that brief moment of time – again, another lesson learned. The biggest lesson learned however was that I probably should not go so far off road with my full bags etc… by myself. If something did happen and I could not lift the bike, I would be in trouble. So, from now on I would just stick to within a half mile of so of the road. If I wanted to go farther, I would wait until I stopped somewhere and could take the tail bag off of the bike. At least until my off road riding skills have improved.

After my off-road excursion, I continued down 82 until I picked up Hwy 24. I headed up 24 towards Leadville. In Leadville, I headed north on 91 towards I 70. I did take a couple of more side roads – a couple of river access roads, they were pretty much just gravel roads down to the river and back, but they were a lot of fun. Some of them had some pretty good climbs back to the paved road. Since Independence Pass, it had been clouding up, partly cloudy to mostly cloudy, to partly cloudy again. By the time I hit Interstate 70 a storm was brewing. My original intent by this time was to make it to Silverton. I had stayed in Silverton before on a couple of Ski trips so I knew there would be places to get a hotel room. However when I go onto I-70, it started to rain and the wind was whipping me around pretty good. I decided that I would just take the first exit I came to after the storm blew in. This exit happened to be for Frisco Colorado. When I exited, the wind died down a little and the rain subsided to a light drizzle. As I road through the town of Frisco, I saw a sign that said “Frisco Lodge”, I pulled over, parked the bike walked in and asked the lady if they had any vacancies. I was very glad to hear her say, “yes”, they did. I was even happier when I heard her say she had two types of rooms; one that I could share a bath for $45, or a room I could have my own private bath for $55. I told her to sign me up for my own private bath. The Frisco Lodge was the coolest hotel/motel I stayed in on the entire trip, and ironically it was one of the least expensive. I guess it was technically a Bed & Breakfast. And damn, did they have a great breakfast the next morning. Eggs, bacon, coffee – in a real coffee cup – there were hash browns, waffles if you wanted them. All kinds of muffins and breads, fruits, etc… definitely blew away the pecan roll and styrafoam coffee cup “continental” breakfast’s I had been getting at those $100+/night hotels. I will be going back to the Frisco Lodge, and would recommend it to anyone.

Needless to say, when I checked into my room – got all of my gear situated, went back downstairs to my bike and what pulled in on both sides of me. Yup, you guess it – a Harley to the left of me, and a Harley to the right of me. To the right was a blue Dyna/electra –Glide (don’t know which one) but it was a “king of the road” Harley. It was a guy and his son out for a few days. The other bike was a bit older, an “80’s” vintage, oil leaks and all. The riders of this bike were a husband and wife. As I am writing this I cannot remember their names or where they were from, but I do remember that it was from a pretty good distance and it was up north. I got to talking with them, and we talked for probably close to an hour before I went to dinner, and then again the next morning before I headed out on my last day of riding before getting to Estes Park. They were really good folks, I remember that they were traveling really light for two people. They said that as they moved along on their trip, they kept shipping stuff home. At this point they were traveling with only a couple of pairs of clothes and were just stopping at laundry mats along the way to wash clothes. I kind of had that same philosophy, but I had enough clothes (well socks, underwear and T-shirts) to get me to Estes Park, where I figured I would wash clothes at Bill’s and that would be enough to get me back home. Of course I was also traveling with spare parts, tools, camera equipment, etc…

I had dinner that evening at a little bar just around the corner. It was still raining out, so I really did not want to deal with rain gear and all that, so I figured I would walk somewhere as opposed to riding somewhere to eat. The place was called Farleys Chop House, and I had a Prime Rib Sandwich at the bar. It was a bargain, on the main menu it was like $13.00, but at the bar, as a sandwich – it was only $7.99, and it was exactly the same thing, it was just served as an open face sandwich. It was quite the tasty treat with a couple of brewskis.

Day 5
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Frisco, CO – Estes Park, CO
125 miles

I figured I had a relatively short ride today, so I slept in a bit. Had the best breakfast of the trip so far, no pecan roll today. I guess I had everything situated by 0900 and was ready to get on my way. I talked to the other riders that were parked next to me. The blue Harley was heading back home, and the 80’s Harley was just heading north. I probably spent the next 30-45 minutes talking to them before I finally pulled on to the road. It was a relatively uninteresting ride from Frisco to the entrance of the Rocky Mountain National Park. I got back on I-70 for a short jaunt up to Silverton, and then took hwy 9 up to Kremling. Hwy 9 is supposed to be a scenic highway (or by-way…). It is pretty scenic from Cannon City, where Royal Gorge and the SuperMax prison are, I had driven this route in my truck before, but between Silverton and Kremling – not so much. I don’t mean to say it was ugly by any means, I guess it’s just that compared to what I had been riding the past several days, it was not all that impressive. Once I got to Kremling I took Hwy 40 towards the RM National Park. I would then go north on 34 through the park and then on to Bill’s house. I remember I had missed the turn onto 34 in Granby. I had gone about a mile before I realized this and turned around. When I got back to 34, I saw 3 or 4 BMW R1200GS’ turning off of 34 and heading west towards Kremling. I’m not sure why that image sticks in my head, but I really thought the 1200 looked good. They had full bags, side and top cases and two of the bikes were two-up. I just remember thinking what a great bike for that. The “King of the Road” Harleys I had seen hundreds of prior to this, suddenly became a little less royal and a little less interesting. These were some cool bikes. Sure I had seen them dozens of time before in pictures or the motorcycle showroom, but seeing the 3 of them in their element, well it was just an impressive sight. This would not be the last time I would see these big GS’s. They didn’t outnumber the Harleys by any means, but I saw a lot of them from this point on. They just looked like they had a purpose, and were built for that purpose.

Once I started north on 34, the scenery just got better and better. Grand Lake is about 15 miles from the intersection of 34 & 40 and it is situated at the western entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I had been to Grand Lake a few times when visiting Bill, and we would always eat at the Grand Lake Lodge. The Lodge is situated so that it overlooks Grand Lake and the mountains surrounding it. It is really a beautiful place to have lunch on the patio and just take in the cool mountain air and magnificent vista. I was really looking forward to it. I pulled off of 34 onto the road towards the lodge, and much to my disappointment, I found that the lodge was closed. Apparently they were remodeling or something. I guess it was a little bit before noon, and truthfully I was not really all that hungry, I just mostly wanted to sit on that porch have some lunch and a brew, take it all in and relax for a little while – I had plenty of time to get to Bills. However seeing that it was closed, I just decided to head on through the park and get something to eat once I got to Estes. After expecting the Grand Lake Lodge porch, nothing else in Grand Lake would suffice.

I guess I hit the park entrance around noon. Riding through the park is great the roads are beautiful and like some of the other national parks I’ve been to, they don’t have wide ugly shoulders. The only complaint I would have about Trail Ridge Road (as 34 is called through the park), was the traffic. You get about 3 million people visiting the park annually, and July is the heaviest month at around 650,000 visitors. Almost all of them are not watching the road, but scouring the sides of the road for wildlife. God forbid one of the seemingly millions of elk happen to show up. The park visitors all think they just discovered bigfoot. And it’s not just in the National Park, this is pretty much anywhere close to the park, especially in Estes. Everyone stops to look at the elk, and the elk in Estes Park are like rabbits on a rabbit farm, they are everywhere – they may even outnumber the Harleys. I guess this is why Bill and all of the others in Estes refer to this type of visitors as Tourons. Okay, if you need really “need” an explanation, that is a moronic tourist.

As I did not need to be in Estes for a while, I kind of took my time. I stopped quite a bit, road slowly behind the tourons, took photos when I saw the opportunity and just had a kind of slow ride through the park. Trail Ridge Road is about 50 miles from entrance to entrance, and it is the highest continuous road in the US at 12,183 ft. Of course I had been on Trail Ridge Road several time, but this was the first time on a motorcycle. I guess the most interesting part was that maybe a mile or so of the highway was under repair just as you reached the summit. Because of this the traffic had to travel on a single lane gravel road. Because the gravel road was next to the repair road, it was right on the edge of the mountain. It would have been really neat to ride if you could have gone at a decent speed, however it was basically a traffic jam at 12,000 ft. I had no problems on my bike, it was made for this type of stuff, but you could tell a lot of the other bikers were nervous – they were riding extremely slow and cautious.

It took me a little over 2 hours to travel the 50 miles through the park. Around 2 PM I finally rode in to Estes Park, my destination for the outbound leg of the trip. It was a sense of achievement. I had achieved my goal without having any goals along the way. I felt really good to have ridden so far from home without a schedule, and to arrive at my destination right on schedule. It is hard to describe the feeling of accomplishment, but I had a great trip along the way. Just taking it easy and doing what I wanted to do along the way. I now understand how people can take motorcycle trips like this year after year, it is definitely something unique in it’s own right and I was hooked.

I figured I would arrive in Estes some time late afternoon/evening on the 18th. Bill works night shift and had just got off work that morning. I did not want to pull into his driveway on the Big Thompson river to early and wake him if he was trying to sleep. As it was around 2:00, and I had not been able to enjoy my vista lunch in Grand Lake, I decided to grab a quick bite before heading over to Bills and then maybe ride around town a little. I had just picked up my Chicken Selects at the Estes Park McDonalds when the phone rang. It was Bill… “where you at?” he asked, I told him that I had just pulled into Estes and was at the Micky D’s grabbing a bite. He said that he had been up for about an hour, so I scarfed down my lunch and headed over to his house. I don’t really remember what we did after I got there, but I know it involved Crown & Coke. I was ready for one - I had just ridden about 1,500 miles in 5 days, so hanging out at the house with a cold beverage was good enough for me.

Days 6 - 10
Thursday July 19, 2007 – Sunday July 22, 2007
Estes Park, CO
422 miles
Average 105.5 miles daily

I spent the next four days in Estes Park. Bill has a kick-ass house just outside of Estes Park in the Big Thompson canyon. He has a mountain in his back yard and a river running through the front yard. It’s inside the Roseavelt National Forest, so the wildlife is protected and abundant. The house was built sometime in the 40’s and Bill bought it from his family in the early to mid 90’s. When he first bought it, he still lived in Dallas and rented the house out during vacation season, but usually spent a few weeks a year at the house. Towards the end of 1995 he found a job at a printing company in Greely, and made the permanent move to Colorado. I had been up there probably a half dozen to a dozen time prior to that, but since he moved up there, I’ve been to Colorado and Estes Park at least once or twice a year. It’s good to have a friend who lives in Colorado.

We pretty much hung out at the house, rode our bikes a little over 100 miles per day, had a few crown and cokes after the ride, and just relaxed on the porch and watched the river run by. Each morning consisted of riding to breakfast at The Mountaineer. Then taking off on a different ride each day. I can’t remember where we rode each day, but we rode to the top (top of Trail Ridge Road), a couple of times. Did a couple of rides through Rist Canyon, on a twisty, turning, almost MotoGP kind of road called Stove Prairie Road. The road to Glen Haven – Devils Gulch they call it. Into Ft Collins, Loveland, Left Hand Canyon outside of Boulder, and a few other places. It was spectacular riding. Not the same as what I had just ridden through from Trinidad up to Estes Park, but it was unique in it’s own way. It was amazing how diverse Colorado can be – even in the mountains where you would think it would all start to look the same. Each part of Colorado has its on identity, and I saw a lot of it. Most of the riding out of Estes Park was on road. Bill has a Honda V-4 Magnum that he bought not to long after moving up to CO. Him an his buddies rode a bit when he first moved up there, but over the past several years they started businesses that required them to work most of the summer days. So most of the off-road excursions were kept to a minimum. I took a couple of rides on some of the river access roads when I would get up early in the morning and try to find something scenic to shoot. But other than that we pretty much stayed on road. After my trip up there, Bill was thinking about getting a dual sport also. That way he could take advantage of the roads that get you to places most others can’t get to. All in all, I had a great time in Estes, it was almost like 2 vacations in one… the 5 days riding to get to Estes, and then the 4 days using Bill’s house as a base and doing day rides from there. The nice part about 4 days is that we could ride each day, and then get home and relax on the porch. There are dozens of stories I could tell about the 4 days – there always are when Bill and I get together. I’ve known him for about 20 years so we have so many stories, I tend to get them mixed up. I guess the point is that we had a great time, I just can’t get them all written down on paper. Maybe some day I will come back to this and get more detail, but for now this is about motorcycle riding, so I will leave it at that.

Day 10
Monday July 23, 2007
Estes Park, CO – Childress, TX
630 miles

To day was my “big ride” day. I was heading home and I knew I was going to burn up some miles as I had to be home by Tuesday and back to work on Wednesday. I had no idea how far I was going to get, but I knew I wanted an early start. I got up around 6:00 and was on the road by 6:30, my earliest start of the entire journey. As I said earlier I wanted to avoid as many interstates as I could on this trip, and the thought of riding through Denver at rush hour on a Monday morning did not exactly appeal to my sense of adventure. I get enough of that type of adventure riding 75 from McKinney to Dallas each morning. This ride was about the scenery and keeping to smaller roads. I knew that I was going to get on I-25 from Denver to Raton NM, but I wanted to ride around Denver’s rush hour traffic. The day before, Bill and I had discussed it and he gave me a back route that would take me through Boulder, but around Denver. The ride through Boulder would not be as bad as 25 through Denver. I was a man on a mission, I rode as hard as I could during the morning to get south of Denver. Hwy 36 through Boulder, 93 through Golden and then 470 to just south of Denver. I did not stop for breakfast or coffee until after I got south of Denver. Once I got to somewhere near Castle Rock, I found a Starbucks, had some coffee and breakfast. But I had made pretty good time so it was still early. At this point I had ridden over 1,700 miles, and during that 1,700 miles I had zero encounters with another vehicle. That was until I got to Colorado Springs. By the time I made Colorado Springs, I was not quite out of the rush hour time frame. I was riding along when a young girl talking on a cell phone in a white Honda almost side swiped me. Luckily I was paying attention, saw her coming, made sure there was nobody beside me and just calmly moved out of the way. But boy did it freak her out. I think somebody became aware of motorcycles that day. It irritated me a little when it happened, but like I said I was ready for it – but this is the exact reason I wanted to avoid I 25 through Denver that morning.

Once I crossed over SR-12 in Trinidad, I more or less figured I was back to where I started in Colorado and my mini, out of the way circumnavigation of the state was complete. The next stopping point on my agenda was Raton NM. I figured that is about where I would be for lunch – maybe a little earlier than I had intended for lunch, but once I hit 64 heading back east, there would not be a place to stop for lunch for a couple of hours. I figured why not complete the circle and eat at the same Arby’s I had eaten at 10 days earlier. I took a quick glance over at the Denny’s, but I did not see what I expected to see – the King of the Road did not make an appearance. After lunch I headed east on 64 towards the Texas boarder and burned up some miles. As I started approaching Dalhart and Dumas I was thinking I would probably stay the night in Amarillo. However when I got to Amarillo, it was right around 6:00 PM. I thought, Hell – I can keep going. So I grabbed a burger at a Wendy’s and started to head east/southeast on 287.

While I was enjoying my tasty Wendy’s dinner, I noticed the sky was starting to cloud up in the direction I was heading. So I finished eating and got back on the road thinking I may be able to beat or get around the storm that was boiling up. The farther southeast I headed, the greener and darker the sky was getting. The wind was beginning to pick up too… it would blow hard from one direction, and then switch and start blowing from the other direction – circulation… not a good thing. Somewhere around 20-30 miles outside of Amarillo it started to rain. It was coming down pretty good so I just thought I would stop at the next town and stay the night. Unfortunatley, the next towns were Claude and Clarendon. I don’t think either of them had a place to stay the night. At least none that I could see from the main road, and I was not about to start cruising around the 3 street towns trying to find one, so I just road through. I can’t remember exactly where it was, but not too much later, added to the barrage of wind and rain, the third element that sometimes accompanies them, hail. It was not large hail, maybe a little larger than pea size, but it was hail nonetheless. Traveling at 70MPH in a hailstorm on wet and windy roads is probably not anyone’s idea of a grand time, but I was on a mission. I tucked my head behind the windscreen, slow downed to about 60 and pushed through. Luckily I had on full gear and a rain suit by this time, so the pelting hail was tolerable. I saw a group of bikers pulled off to the side of the road heading towards Amarillo. I just waved and kept on plowing through the storm. Part of this was because I could see a clearing a few miles ahead, I chased it for probably close to an hour before I finally caught it. I never got out of the rain enough to remove my rain gear, but I was definitely out of the storm, or at least on the fringe. Just about that time I made it to Childress, TX. It was around 8PM, so I decided to stay the night in Childress. They had plenty of motels, so I stoppe at the econolodge and stayed the night.

It had been a great day of riding. My longest ride of the trip at 630 miles in 13 hours. Only stopping for breakfast, lunch, dinner and gas. It was my iron-butt ride. Surprisingly it did not seem too bad. Some people have asked me how I could ride so long, they say they could never do it, or they could but it would be a beating. To me it did not seem like that many miles or that many hours. I more or less got in a zone and the time flew by. I had been riding for 6 hours at one point and I remember thinking that it had only seemed like an hour. I tried listening to music at a couple of points during my trip, but I found that I actually liked riding with only my ear plugs in better. The solitude was calming, the muffled sound of the engine, road and wind allowed my thoughts to go on their own adventure. Watching the road, the sky, and my surroundings gave me all of the stimulation I needed and the miles hummed away beneath my tires. It was a great ride.

Day 11
Tuesday July 24, 2007
Childress, TX – McKinney, TX
258 miles

The final day of my trek. I wanted to get home early, to pick up my dog, get some yard work done as it had gone 11 days in July with being mowed or watered, and just have to time to relax before having to go to work the next day. So I got up packed my bags and left really early. I pulled onto 287 some time between 5:30 and 6:00. It was a pretty nice day, no rain, very few clouds and not too hot considering it was the end of July in Texas. This was a fairly uneventful ride for the last 250 miles of my trip. It was interesting to see the same roads I had crossed on my first day out, the same sights, the same towns. The trip was coming to a conclusion. At some point between Decatur and McKinney, after I had turned back onto 380, I crossed the same geographical point at the same chronological time 11 days later on my inbound leg as I did on my outbound leg. In my mind this was the finish line. I still had a few miles to go to get home, but they were miles I ride or drive on a normal basis. Ironic that I crossed this point at same time of day on my last day, as I did on my first day, and it just happened to be where I would normally take my exit off of 380 on any given day. It was like completing a circle.

I pulled into my garage at 11:27 AM. I was home. It had been a great trip. Everything I had hoped for and more. I was more confident in my riding and my bike. I had ridden through the flats of Texas, the mountains of Colorado, up mountains, beside rivers, through rain, shine and hail. I knew when I got home that I had accomplished something for myself. Fulfilled something that has always been inside of me. I can’t wait to do it again next year.

2009-05-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

Thank you Gary for putting this up together.
Here are some pics of my babies. This is a very rare GS Adventure 1150, 2006 model. That is the last batch of 1150s just shortly after they came up with GS 1200s. That was made for 25th anniversary of GS motorcycles. BMW manufactured only 300 of these model world wide . There are only 150 of those here in U.S. check here for more info: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=375824

I lowered the seat by shaving 3 inches of foam and having it recovered.

And this is my other baby. YAMAHA XT 225. My red hair English Hero “LUIS” has traveled from Alaska to Argentina on this bike. http://www.loisontheloose.com/index.html

I will post more RIDING pics as soon as my left hand can hold the clutch again.

eddie's bike

2009-05-06T05:55:00.000-05:00

2008 BMW R1200 GS
this is my new bike. The one that replaced my BMW F650 GS after a truck pulled out in front of me and totaled it...

Day at Bois d’Arc Trails

2009-05-05T23:21:00.000-05:00

I took the family to http://www.texoffroad.com/ for my daughters first offroad....she is riding her new Kawasaki 110...Great family place to ride! Eddie was on his BMW GS1200 and I was riding my BMW GS800...both bikes did surprisingly well for there size. Elizabeth had a blast!

Gary's Bikes

2009-05-05T21:59:00.001-05:00

This is my 2009 BMW GS 800..

Changes I have made:

1. touring windshield

2. BMW skid plate

3. AKRAPOVIC pipe

4. Hyperpro shock (front and rear)

5.hand guards

6. Hepco and Becker crash bars

2009 KLX 250s...

Just pick this up today.