Still Waiting to Ride

Started this blog on 19 December, Finished it today the 26th.

Argggg. Well, no riding for me this weekend. Kevin is out of town and house building beckons—building a house can really cut into a guy’s riding time. Next time I will “build” my house like everyone else does, pay someone else to do it then just talk about building it as if I were actually doing it.

This weekend I will be laying hardwood floor and slate tile instead of riding. Ah but there is a method to this madness. If I work on the house and put on a good show I can take off over Christmas weekend for four days. I think I will head out to Big Bend on the first day then keep going toward southern Arizona. The roads between El Paso and Nogales, Arizona are desolate and beautiful if you stay off of I-10. Perhaps I will tour around the area for a day then roll back the last day. Bisbee is a great little town–full of old hippies and funky places and surrounded by roads made for riding.

Mid-winter riding out west can be dicey. Sometimes the weather can be fine and warm, other times you might get caught in a snowstorm. With luck I will get a break and ride the whole way in 50 and 60 degree temps. That is providing I wait until 10:00 am to start the day. At least there is riding. I’m just happy to be able to ride in the winter at all. An electric vest would help a bunch but I don’t have one. It will be a good chance to test my temperature tolerance and comfort level on the RT. At least it has heated grips. I will up date around Christmas before I take off.

Well Christmas has come and gone and I did not go riding. Instead, I stayed in bed with the flu—great fun. It was too cold to ride any way with temps in the 30s during the day, pretty darn cold by Austin standards. No matter any way. The RT is down with bad noise near the front pulley, and I must use the time to effect repairs—not something I am looking forward to. I love to ride them and tinker with them but I hate to do major repairs. Years of working on all kinds of vehicles has taught me that they are inevitably a can of worms. Take it apart to fix on thing and end up having to fix five or six more things, and it is always worse than predicted before opening it up. But open it up I must. Perhaps I will get started today, It is supposed to warm to about 60 degrees.
More later

If I am going to ride the RT in a week I have a lot of work to do, and all the while loosing valuable riding time. The temps have been running about 50 or so at night and 70 plus by midday—prime riding down here. Anyone who lives where the snow and ice are building up should consider coming down to Texas for a Big Bend trip.

The RT is running sweetly with the latest tweeking. Now I just need to put the plastic back together and ride it. I followed the suggestions of the IBMW guys and installed intake tubes and the monotronic computer reprogramming cat-code plug for a GS. Also “de-tuned” the top end a little by increasing the valve lash from 12mm on the exhaust side to 14mm and from 6 to 12 mm on the intake side. The whole deal cost just $50.00 and seemed to boost the low-end and roll-on throttle response. Overall, RT pulls harder and comes on quicker with a technical, though unnoticeable by me, loss at the topend—I don’t ride over 100 mph very often.

Meanwhile, West Texas beckons. I want to get out of Austin by Saturday the 18th. Kevin will be getting in from Boulder Colorado that morning so we may not get out of here until the afternoon. If we stay in the saddle we can still make the 500 miles before it gets too late. I think we will stay at he Gage in Marathon, then head for the Davis Mountains for a turn around the mountain loop—about 100 miles of pristine desert mountains and great roads. I also want to revisit some the other roads that were being rebuilt when I was down there last. This trip will be strictly pavement oriented on RT. I intend to return soon and cover as many of the unpaved routes as possible—too many for one trip.

If you would like to get out of the icebox and stretch out in the wide open of West Texas for a few days, drop us and email and set it up.

Oakley

I drifted just a bit on that last blog, I wanting to write about how great the Big Bend Tour will be and what a great place it is to ride and all that. I ended up writing an ode to my motorcycle, gushing like a schoolboy in love. Oh well, we all fall in love once in a while, or is it just me?

The Big Bend GS Tour is the result of that research trip and ten years of visiting the area. It is going to be a truly great tour. Creature comforts will be excellent: great historic hotels and local fare that is as good as you will find. But it is the roads and the topography that really set this area apart. One of the big reasons I like the place so much is that it feels like the Rockies, looks like the desert, and rides like the mountains.

The Big Bend or, more properly, the Trans-Pecos area of Texas feels like no other place in the west. It is unquestionably the west in an old Mexico way—when I’m out there I feel like I’m in a Sam Peckinpah movie. The spare landscape gives that high-lonesome feeling, and the mountains add an air of adventure and excitement. The national park is also a unique setting. In December it can be 80+F in the heat of the day and cool to the 30's at night. July might be over 100 down on the Rio Grande yet a cool 75 just a few miles away in the mountains. There is a primitive hot springs next to the river where you can go soak at night. If want some excellent hiking, there are spectacular trails all over the park including a hike up 8k feet to the top of Emery peak. The local folks are classic westerners and easy to work with, pretty friendly and welcoming to the folks who travel through and sprinkle a little cash here and there.

All this can be integrated into a four or five day motorcycle tour. The BMW GS or similar bike is perfect for this country because there are both great high-speed pavement riding and miles and miles of unpaved roads to explore. The roads are all excellent: empty, pretty and fast. The setting couldn't be better either. Every night you can eat and drink well then settle into a nice room and rest up for the next day.

I’m headed back out there with our guide Kevin for some more research on the route and accommodations the weekend of December, 18. Another long ride out west--that's gonna be good.

Take a look at this one and sign up for next year. You will come away remembering this tour for a long time. All in all, just an excellent riding destination--an especially good riding break from the ice bound winter. Sign up—I want to lead this trip often, it is my favorite in Texas.

Oakley

I finally carved out a long weekend to ride the RT and pay a visit to the Big Bend country out in west Texas. It was everything I had hoped it would be and a bag of chips.

First, and I don’t suppose I am telling anyone anything new who has ridden one much but, the RT eats up pavement at an astounding rate, especially when you take it in 500 mile chunks as I did a couple of weeks ago.

I have to admit I was going to trailer the 10 hours from Austin to Study Butte then ride around for three days. However, that was not to be. We hooked up the double trailer rig with the popup pulling the bike trailer and headed west. About an hour out of Austin the bike trailer spit off a wheel all we saw were sparks spraying from where the tire is supposed to be.
Somewhere near Johnson City we ended up unloading the bikes, ditching the trailer in the weeds on the side of the road and riding home about midnight. After a not-so-restful four hours sleep I was riding the RT west toward the Big Bend while the other three of our two couple outing lounged in the comfort of the truck.

I tried not to show how good it felt to be on my new bike while they were trapped in the truck—it was a grey out and a little cold when we left town and I played up the sacrifice I was making by toughing it out alone on the bike. I think they bought it for a while. I stayed in range for the first four hours, checking in with them here and there. Not too long after I hit Interstate 10 west I passed them for the last time. The RT was begging to run 95 and I finally forgot the traffic fines and points and turned it loose, perhaps even spurring it a little. An hour later I got off the interstate and headed south on a secondary highway rationalizing that I would meet back up with them in a few hours down the road in Alpine.

That was pure fiction. The RT and I were flying through the desert, stunningly barren and beautiful landscapes all around, and I didn’t care if I ever made it to Alpine. An hour or two after leaving the traffic behind, cruising between 90 and 110, I decided to bypass the near-defunct railroad town of Sanderson, and stay in the desert where I could keep it dialed up and soak in more big wide open.

Somewhere out there east of Marathon I stopped to get off the RT for a little relief. Once the big boxer was shut down, the only sounds were the sawing of the cicadas and the delicate ping of the cooling exhaust. This was what I had been looking for: an inverted bowl of blue sky hovered delicately over hills and cliffs covered in saltbush and ocotillo, and there I was feeling like the least thing of it all.

From my rest stop west to Marathon was an hour of pure bliss: no cars–not one either way–open road, canyon bluffs and verdant desert. The RT continued to ask for 5k rpm in 5th and who was I to fight it?

I got off the bike in Marathon (one main street, no lights and just a scattering of permanent residents) to catch up with my buddy Neil and to visit the famed Gage motel-–a must stop on the Big Bend tour. Local ranchers built the Gage early in the last century so they would have a nice place to stay when they came to town on cattle business, and it has evolved into a one-of-a-kind top-notch hide out.

This is where it all starts for me: West Texas–the big empty that is really so full. It is the nearest real out-west locale to my home in Austin. It smells dry and clean and sharp, the air is high and thin, the sky is intensely blue especially early and late in the day, it just feels like home. I wanted to linger and soak it up but I had to make it to Alpine where I figured I would meet up with the truck-bound folks I was supposed to be traveling with. The run from Marathon to Alpine provided more of the same great wide-open empty roads and stunning desert landscapes. More 90mph plus running put me there quicker than I had imagined. I picked up cell phone service and connected with my friends thinking they would be way ahead of me because of my little detour. It turns out they had a trailer flat on the popup and were an hour behind me. I was off the being-late hook, but they wanted me to wait for them. “No” I said, I didn’t think I would be waiting an hour when the evening was nigh and another one hundred miles of desert vistas and empty roads were in the offing.

Alpine is a sweet little town nestled in the mountains and I stopped just long enough to gas up before heading due south toward Study Butte in the heart of the Big Bend. The RT poured it out while I guided the two of us over more and still more miles of empty roads as the landscape became increasingly mountainous, broken and beautiful. I rolled into Study Butte just before dark, secured a campsite for the popup and settled in to wait for my truck-bound companions. The sun ducked behind the Glass Mountains, the sky flashed crimson clouds hanging just above the southern horizon somewhere over Mexico. Darkness settled hand in hand with silence in over the desert like a cape while I watched up the empty highway for familiar headlights. They came along in about an hour, and I relished the time to think about one of the best days of riding in memory.

It was only a 500-mile day–not far really–but I stood leaning on my new traveling partner a transformed man. Who can say why some riding days stand out from others? Perhaps it’s the state of mind that develops as the miles strip away all the built up junk in your head and you get down to the basics: pay attention to everything because you have to to stay alive and because you can. It becomes a kind of meditation–stay upright and see. More on that later.

Before the weekend ended I had ridden another 1k miles and was none the worse for wear. The RT is getting a rest waiting for an oil change and valve adjustment and such. It’s been raining and I am waiting for my next chance to get out for a good head cleaning–me not the bike. I read somewhere some thing like “Sometimes it takes a whole tank of gas before I can think straight.” I would edit that to:

“Sometimes it takes a thousand miles before I can stop thinking.”

I have been spending a lot of time working to get my touring gear in order and thinking about the up-coming seasons both here in Central Texas and in Colorado. I am really excited about two things right now—my new bike that I will use for guiding tours and traveling out to the Big Bend region to set up the new winter tour for next year.

I was driving everyone crazy watching bikes on ebay and in the papers—constantly tracking the prices of Beemers and trying to figure out what I could afford. At first I was set on the newest k1200rs I could afford, but along with some touring deficiencies, they just weren’t dropping in value enough for me to get what I wanted. Eventually I figured out what I really wanted was a k1200GT but they are way out of my price range right now.
After a few more weeks obsessing on the computer, I found a 1996 RT in the Austin classifieds. It was clean except for a no-speed drop in a gravel parking lot. And it was loaded with goodies like a Givi trunk and BMW tank bag, touring windshield and a Staintune pipe, not to mention a brand new valve cover to replace the dinged one. The tires were toast but that was fine because the price was right in my budget of 5k.

Now that I have been riding it a couple of weeks I am hooked on the big oil-head boxer. I have never owned an oil head but ridden a few. It feels like a miniature space ship. It’s not screaming fast but strong, sure and quiet. It’s the near perfect touring and guiding bike. I can’t wait to get it out in the open and stretch it out.

Which brings me to the second thing taking up too much of my thought time—Big Bend. If you have never been to the Big Bend you should go—go for the empty space and the mountains and the desert and the peace of mind. Oh yeah, go for the roads too!

I will be heading out there ASAP to map out and set up a road tour and, I hope, a dual sport tour. I know the area well but I have not been out there for a couple of years so it is time to get reacquainted. There is the Limpia hotel in Fort Davis and the Gage Hotel in Marathon—both great old places to rest and fuel up. There are the Davis Mountains and the loop road that circles them—eighty miles of sweet twisties. Hot springs on the Rio Grande, Comfy cabins and, great desert mountain hiking in the national park, a cold spring pool at Balmoreah, and a bunch of other stuff to do and see. All surrounded by miles and miles of great riding.
I will report soon. Oakley

It’s December and we are finally ready to take reservations for this summer. Our advertisement in Ride Texas magazine starts this month, and we are reviewing the tour stops and generally gearing up for our first touring season as AdventureOne Tours.

This first year the tours will need a little fine–tuning and that’s why we are offering them at steep discounts. Since we are still working out some minor kinks, the folks who tour with us this season will pay much less. All the tours this year are priced at our cost. The prices represent only what it costs us to put on the tours and nothing more.
But that does not mean the quality will suffer. We will still stay and eat in the best local spots, and provide first class road support.

We will cover the best roads and see incredible sights–day after day of great riding. Come out and see our Colorado, and you will remember it for a lifetime. Besides, it’s going to be fun, and you can’t beat fun for a good time!