Topic: Rider's logs

[CBGhia]

Just the guys (left to right, Tom/Motopsycho, Chris/The Architect, Steve/Steve-o, Steve, Pecan Tree, and George)


So, that night we went out to eat at the local mexican food joint.  A few of us in the group might have been a little lit up before we got there, and they might have noticed, because they cut us off after just one round.  LOL. We were not on bikes at this point and had a DD, so we were cool. I guess some people just take that drunken biker lifestyle to heart.  That's OK, we grabbed some firewood and went back to the camp to finish off some of that rum, whiskey and beer.

Packing up for the ride back home.  Notice the little addition.


Tommy!


Stopped to smell the wildflowers.


Deja Vu'  2 years ago, on the way back from the same trip, I lost the same sidecover!





So, I took a really long way back, went through some of the same twisties that we did on Saturday, just much slower with the bags.
About an hour from home, after 6 hours on the road, I get a knocking sound and I am leaking oil all over the chain. I call a buddy, but while waiting, I get my sprocket cover off and find the leak is from the shifter seal.  My buddy shows up with his truck, listens for a sec and says "Dude, it's just an exhaust leak". He was right. Tightened down number 2 exhaust collar and GTG.  Still a little leak, but it survived the trip home. 

Almost 1100 miles when it was all said and done.  Great time! Can't wait until next year!!

[Stev-o]

Nice write up Joe, here is mine:


I cut out of work early on Friday and met the guys at the campground on the lake.

Decided to go for a ride and hit some of the great local roads...




Stopped for a beer at the Gnarly Gar, a floating bar on Lake Travis with some of the biggest catfish you'll ever see. They just beg for table scraps.
Tommy wants to go boating and nearly fell in...






A guy walks in the bar and commented on our bikes that he saw in the parking lot [doesn't that always happen?]
He says he likes our bikes and asks if we like the roads in the area? Yes, we do. And he says he likes to drive them in his car,  yada yada, who cares?
So we walk out to the park lot and the guys car is an effin Ferrari!

[Kickstart]

Great ride report!... and 1100 miles - very impressive!

Also, I got a good laugh out of your signature: "One Man's trash is another man's wife." - I've got to ask: Is that from personal experience, and if so, what side of that equation where you on? 

 

[Stev-o]

So we put in about a 40 mile ride and head back to camp as we were getting thirsty.

'zilla on another 550...





"Gourmet George" offers to grill us an awesome dinner and how could we refuse?  Stuff grilled jalopenos, nowhere but Texas!




Sausage and hamburgers too, thanks GG!

[Kickstart]

Man... I'm really impressed with you guys... thanks for sharing all these pictures. 

I'll try to do a better job documenting our leg this year when GZ comes out our way.

[Stev-o]

Sat morning we leave camp to hook up with Cycle Ranger and Pecantree in Marble Falls. We meet up and I suggest we head north to some really nice roads near Inks Lake State Park.
I'm leading and going pretty fast, trying to stay ahead of the Architect on his Ducati! I know of a good turnoff with a great view of the lake and I pull in, the others follow. A few minutes later we hear the rumble of multiple Harleys and within a couple minutes, we were literally surrounded! Oh #$%*e!
They were a traveling party: music, cold beers and smoke filled the air, tobacco and other! As Joe wrote above, they were all cool and wanted to talk about the "old Hondas"!

There are five SOHC Hondas in the back...




They were on a poker run and have done this for 21 years, we pledged to do the same. After 30 min or so, we bid farewell as it was time for some great Texas BBQ.



Psycho said he was a little hard on his bike and she was running on 2 cyl. He limped back about 70 miles and we diagnosed and fixed it within an hour or so and he was smiling again!







Had fun that night at Maria's Cantina celebrating Cinco de Mayo but they cut us off so the party moved back to camp.


The aftermath, man zilla can drink!






Then he told me he wanted to ride that Z1 he was hearing about, so how could I say no?






Only rode about 180 miles with zilla but had a great time!

Already have plans for next year, and it includes 3 sisters...

[CycleRanger]

That's me far right.  I hope that's best photo of me you got!   

Lol, "the Others".   To be fair, they had a few Honda's of their own, they just looked like Harleys!

[motocyconomad]

this year it was more about having fun than racing across the state. It was all fun twisty roads and good times at the camp. #$%* dyna 3 ohm coils they blow out everytime i hold it over 100mph. stock coils rock. St. George had some on hand. we had fun. lots of it.

[motocyconomad]

thanks for the ride everyone

[motocyconomad]

pretty windy on the way out to Austin, very nice ride home, really exhausted from all the fun. gave the ol girl a jump in the park. it was hard to ride on 2 cylinders but how cool is this bike that it made it back.  me and joe rode most of the way to marble falls then we parted. i skated and went home.

http://youtu.be/7EsoA53qazE
 
FUN. see ya round. thanks everyone and I know everyone who couldnt make it was here on this trip in spirit. may we meet again, and often.

[Stev-o]

Psycho - wow, you are rockin that board!   Great pics and time, let's do it again.

[Pecantree]

Arranged with Stev-0 to meet up with the guys in Marble Falls at 11. Packed and ready to go at 10, hopped on the bike and realized my handle bars weren't right after adjusting the steering bearings the night before. Adjust and on the road by 10:15. Make it to the meetup spot only 20 minutes late. Say hi to everybody and thanks for waiting. First swing by is the park road 4, Goes by Longhorn Caverns and then by Inks lake.

Beautiful road with LOTS of wildflowers. Never did get everybody together with their bikes in a field of flowers. Nest year!
Next stop Devils watering hole.  Here's a before picture.

And after the rest of the gang arrived.

On the road into LLano I see motocyconomad slowing down and kicking his engine. WTF?  But we limp into Cooper's BarBQ
In the parking lot we give it a go and determine one coil isn't firing.

Nothing to do but eat meat!


Make it 20 miles down the road and it's back to the side of the road again.

This time we try to get Tom to ride with ice compress on his coils. Wouldn't bite.
Others have recounted the evening at Maria's better then I.
But here's the aftermath in camp.

Thanks everybody!

[Proto]

The NM Leg.

Justin(jcarthel) and I made plans to meet in Clayton, NM at noon at the Rabbit Ears cafe on Sunday, May 12.  Kelly(2ceebees), a sohc/4 member out of Albuquerque, NM also showed up to provide back-up to me as I drove across northern NM.  His sohc/4 was down so he opted to ride along on his Kawasaki 1100. 

I pulled out of Craig early Saturday the 11th.  It was kind of nippy so I wore the heavy riding gear with liners and stowed the mesh stuff in the bag.  I headed southeast via various two lane highways keeping to the more sedate west slope side of the Rocky mountains.  The two highest passes I crossed (Rabbit Ears by Steamboat and Hoosier Pass near Breckenridge) still had lots of snow on the ground.  Made for some cold riding until I dropped down the other side.

I finally had to grit my teeth and cross over to the Front Range side of the hill and get on I-25 for the final dash to the NM border.  Before I could even get onto the interstate, I had grab brakes to avoid a car that pulled out in front of me inspite of my bright headlight, yellow bike and gear!! 

Crossed into NM as raindrops started to fall and grabbed room at Motel 6.  I was up early and eastbound on Hwy 64.  I have ridden most of NM east-west routes in their entirety, but only a small portion of 64.  My plan was to completely travel its length on this trip. 

I had time to kill as Clayton was only 90 miles away.  Justin had suggested I check out the Capulin Volcano which was on the way to Clayton near the town of Capulin.  It is a national monument and for a mere $5, you get to drive up to the top on a paved road.  At the end is a parking lot on the edge of the crater.  Kind of neat.

I continued on after my side trip, arriving an hour or so early at Clayton.  I decided to head further east to the Texas border and got photo of my bike in front of the Welcome to Texas sign.  I then returned to Clayton and proceeded northeast a few miles and crossed over the Oklahoma state line, getting a photo there too!

Back at the cafe in Clayton, I visited with an old resident of the town on the bench out front until 2ceebees arrived.  We then got a call from Justin who advised he was running late by 45 minutes.  He finally showed and grabbed some much needed lunch.  Afterwards we did the official hand-off and started our trip west.
Justin headed for home.

Kelly and I made it two the NRA Whittington center just before they closed and got a quick tour of the museum. We saddled up again and rode to Cimarron, NM dodging antelope along the way.  We grabbed a couple of rooms and atfer unloading our gear, headed for a cantina at the haunted St. James hotel.  After sufficiently quenching our thirst, we hiked back to the old motel were in. 

Morning found us starting the most fun part of Hwy 64.  From Cimarron nearly all the way to Farmington the road is mostly curvy mountain roads.  I even managed to scrape the pegs once or twice!!  Just outside of Angel Fire is a neat Vietnam Memorial site that Kelly led us to.  It has a museum with interesting exhibits as well as chapel and gift shop. 

We grabbed a decent breakfast burrito in Eagle Nest and then rode into and around Taos, checking out one gift/art shop.  Just outside of Taos, we stopped to check out the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and all the souvenir vendors along the roadside.  We mounted up again and had a fantastic mountain ride through the high country, passing through Chama and then dropping down slope towards Farmington where we finally ran out of hills and into hot temperatures.  We got rooms at a nice hotel and then headed out for a steak dinner to celebrate a successful run of highway 64.

Since I had a long ride back to Craig, I was up early the next morning and heading north.  Kelly was heading back to ABQ.

The ride north via Hwy 550 thru Durango, Silverton and Ouray was every bit as fun as 64.  I have been over this road many times in autos but never on a motorcycle.  I will be doing that run again!

GZ 3 and I finally rolled into Craig tired and but-sore.  It was a 1315 mile trip.  Leg two will start this Saturday when I haul GZ3
to Four Corners for the hand-off to the AZ guys.  Bike ran great for the most part, one fuel filter isssue that was a simple fix.

A few pics.

[Stev-o]

Great write up and pics, Proto.  I've ridden CO 550, the million dollar highway. It is a fantastic road, especially just south of Ouray. Looking forward to your next leg.

[RAFster122s]

Proto, nice bike...I like the yellow. Jcarthel has a nice 750 too, scottly, climbingAZ, and I met him on a GZ run moving the big lizard from NM to AZ...

[scottly]

Great report, Proto!  

[70CB750]

Amazing trip, I plotted it on google maps just now.  Job well done!

[2ceebees]

Hey guys, 2ceebees(Kelly) here.  I figured I'd add my .02 to Proto's log. 

Since my 75' 550K1 is in bits on the workbench, I rode my 00' Kaw ZRX1100.  I left Cedar Crest, NM at 730am and made my way up Hwy 14 to Santa Fe, then jumped on I25 heading North to Springer which was my 2nd gas stop.  At the pumps, I met a nice ol' farmer with motorcycle questions and a few hunting beagles in the back of his truck and chatted it up while my bottomside regained bloodflow.  Realizing I was behind schedule to Clayton and 80 miles ahead of me, I mounted up and twisted the throttle pretty hard and made it pretty close to our 1130 meetup.  I pulled up to a bright yellow 750F and that was my first meeting with Dave(Proto).   Justin was running a bit late but showed up before too long.  We all dug into some decent grub for the Mother's Day Buffet at the Rabbit Ears Cafe.  It was a pleasure to meet Justin and his wife and son, they're good people.  His little boy really liked Godzilla.  Dave and Justin took care  of the official handoff and we of course talked bikes for a bit and then Dave and I were on our way.

 From Clayton to Raton, there was lots of wildlife in form of deer, antelope, and prairie dogs along the road, so much so we had to slow down an dodge them numerous times.  A few beeps of the horn seemed to send the more oblivious ones scurrying off.   Just past Raton is the NRA Whittington Center.  We got there very close to closing time but the folks inside were really nice and let us take our time.  Cool museum and gift shop.  I look forward to throwing some lead downrange there next time.  After that, we made it to Cimmaron  for the night and found a decent(uh..cheap) place to stay within walking distance to the old St James hotel.  The St. James is known as one of the most haunted hotels in the country but I've been there before and they have a good bar so Dave and I had a chance to swap stories and knock back a few. 
Next morning we were off through some nice twisties to Eagle's Nest where you can get a breakfast burrito and catch up on the local chatter.  From there it's not too far to Taos but along the way you don't want to miss a stop at the New Mexico Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  It's a special place in an amazingly beautiful setting.  My dad was a POW in Vietnam but was fortunate enough to come home.  I do not take this lightly. 

We stopped at a place or two in Taos but didn't venture too deep into Tribal land, permits required and all that.  We headed for the Rio Grande Gorge bridge to make sure GZ got his pic taken and grab a snowcone from one of local roadside vendors.  From there, it was a good run to a 10,000 foot peak in the San Juan mountains just above Tierra Amarilla.  We stopped for a pic or two and then off for the rest of Hwy 64 and into Farmington.  We got there around 445 or so and found a decent hotel.  A little bit later we scouted out a salad bar/steakhouse and wrapped up for the night. 
Dave was out early the next morning as he had a longer ride than I.  I headed out on Hwy 550 by 9ish and home by Noon.  Proto is good people and I look forward to next year.   Great ride, glad to be part of the 2013 GZ Relay!

First pic:  Left to right:  Dave, Justin, Kelly.
2nd pic:  GZ at 10K feet above NM. 

Cheers!

[scottly]

Thanks for the report Kelly. I hope to add my own in a couple of days!!

[Stev-o]

Thanks for the report Kelly.

+1.....sounds like you had a good trip. I love the area around Taos and have been there multiple times.

[ofreen]

We stopped at a place or two in Taos but didn't venture too deep into Tribal land, permits required and all that. 

This made me curious.  I've been all through that area. Permits for what?

[2ceebees]

We stopped at a place or two in Taos but didn't venture too deep into Tribal land, permits required and all that. 

This made me curious.  I've been all through that area. Permits for what?

Photography.  Proto wanted a pic of GZ and his bike in front of the Pueblo but you have to buy a permit to take pictures there.  It's an indian thing, they're pretty protective of photography rights on their land. 

[Proto]

NM final leg.

Pulled out of here with the lizard Friday morning and headed for Grand Junction via Rangely-Douglas Pass-Loma.  A much more interesting ride than Craig to Rifle and then I-70.  Spent the night in GJ with daughter and son-in-law, then had a leisurely ride south to Cortez and then the Four Corners monument.  Trying to explore new roads whenever I can, I took Hwy 141 through Gateway, Naturita and Dove creek.  Simply gorgeous! Checked into the motel room in Cortez and relaxed for a couple of hours before heading to the monument.

Got a text from heffay that they were 2.5 hours out.  I quit trying to figure out the time changes involved as we were dealing with mountain, pacific, navajo and whatever timezone coke was operating on!!  I just planned to get there early and wait!

I arrived at the monument and parked next to an Arkansas plated Harley.  Figured it had to be coke's.  He was riding to get some "Iron Butt" certificate where you do 1000 miles in less than 24 hours (documented via time stamped receipts, etc.)  Met the famous "coke" and talked Harleys and Hondas until the AZ riders showed up.  Checked out the monument, did the official hand-off and then we all headed to Cortez for the night.  Grabbed dinner downtown at place with a live blues band and then returned to the picnic area of the motel for a few more "toddies" before hitting the sack. 

I did my usual early exit the following morning and explored a new route north.  Took hwy 149 through Dolores, Stoner, Rico, Placerville and then over to Ridgway, catching 50 north to I-70.  Day started cold and got progressively colder until I was riding in a light snow fall as i went over Lizard Head Pass.  There was snow on the ground too, but road was fairly dry and not icey where it was wet.  Grabbed lunch at Clifton, CO and then super slabbed it to Rifle and then north to Craig.  Road construction south of Meeker and a drenching rain, turned my pristine F1 into a mud splattered dirt bike!!

Made it to Craig and garaged the bike, 2177 miles total miles for both legs of the trip, 1242 of those miles with GZ 3 on board!

[scottly]

Great report, and great to finally meet you, Proto!!!

[scottly]

I'm going to bump this thread a couple of times to get it to the next page, as this one is a bit slow to load...
Edit: one was enough. The next log will start page 3..