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2009 Labor Day in Arkansas

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Dirtrideroader

Dirtrideroader

0
Joined
Dec 8, 2003
Messages
2,468
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21
Location
Republic of Texas
First Name
Chris
Last Name
Blaschke
We went, we saw, it kicked my tail! Let the story telling begin!

I have to finish unloading then I will try to fill in a few more details with the minimal number of pictures I took.

I would like to thank all those that helped me in my times of need.
 
Currently having technical difficulties with my antique digital camera. Will post something as soon as I figure out how to extract the photos.
 
Dirtrideroader said:
Currently having technical difficulties with my antique digital camera. Will post something as soon as I figure out how to extract the photos.
Click to expand...

Don't make me come there and yank the pics out of the digicam....
 
I wish you would. I don't know if it is a memory card issue or the memory card reader. Either way, it is showing up as blank. But in the camera I can see the pictures.
 
I had a great time and made a bunch of new friends. It was my first "dual sport" ride and I didn't really know what to expect. We only had one casualty that I know of and it was of the four legged, barking kind, and it really tore me up to see that :-( I gave my dog some extra hugs and dog bones when I got home.
Hopefully some of you guys took a lot more pictures than I did. I was too busy catching my breath and playing with my GPS to set waypoints when we stopped. Fantastic stuff and I'm really looking forward to our next ride.
 
This is the short version trip report:

Friday 25 miles including some very technical ATV Trails across the road from Mack's Pines, it took Piglet, Scott and I about 4 hours to ride, with multiple tips overs and lots of stops. Most people would think we were nuts for riding a couple KLR's and an old DR350 where we went. This ride would have been a blast on my KDX. We got out of the woods right at dusk.

Saturday 140 mile ride with a nice lunch in Oark led by Pig Trail. Mostly dirt roads with some fun pavement mixed in. It was cool, rainy and wet on the way to Oark and very pleasant on the way back.

Sunday 230 mile ride led by Tourmeister. Roughly 50/50 dirt roads and pavement. Most of the dirt was fast and fun and we rode some spectacular twisty blacktop as well.

A good time was had by all.

Slide show here:

http://community.webshots.com/slideshow/574553175GCgbeI?mediaPosition=1
 
:tab Great time. I think I got rained on for all of about 15 minutes between the two days of riding. The best part was the lack of dust. I'm the one that hit the dog. The bike and myself were fine. It was not pretty for the dog :-| Other than that, it was a fantastic weekend with cool temps and sunshine. I did not have any ATV close calls, but I did have a few cagers that were reluctant to share the road :doh: I'll try to get my pics posted up. There aren't many because I forgot to charge the camera battery :roll:
 
One thing I am curious about. Sunday morning I was told the group I joined was the slow sight seeing group. Call me a newb if you like but there wasn't anything slow about our group. I really liked the pace and I only saw one person leave the road and he got right back on. What was the name of the really tight paved road that he went off on? Also, what was that dirt road's name that had the swim hole on it. I'll look it up tonight on my GPS if nobody recalls. :pirate:
 
TypeSH said:
One thing I am curious about. Sunday morning I was told the group I joined was the slow sight seeing group. Call me a newb if you like but there wasn't anything slow about our group. I really liked the pace and I only saw one person leave the road and he got right back on. What was the name of the really tight paved road that he went off on? Also, what was that dirt road's name that had the swim hole on it. I'll look it up tonight on my GPS if nobody recalls. :pirate:
Click to expand...

:tab I think you were in the group I led. Hwy 123 South of Mt Judea is the real tight paved road with the 5mph switchbacks that get you up on the ridge. One rider went off at about 5-10mph and just stopped in the ditch, no harm no foul. Our pace (well mine anyway) was usually around 35-40 mph tops on the unpaved stuff and usually around 70mph on the pavement. The swim hole was Falling Water Creek water falls. If you look at the map and find where Hwy 16 heads East from Hwy 7, it makes a big V shape. The water fall is in the top center of the V on CR 1205, also known as Falling Water Rd. Despite all the rain, the falls were not flowing very much.
 
6 am arrived on Friday and in the pouring rain we loaded my xr into the back of Chris's pickup. Off to Arkansas! 9 hours later we rolled into Mack's Pines Cabins to begin the weekend. Thankfully the sun was shining.

We met Elmer and Mark from Marshall and set off to explore the Arkansas TAT route east of Mack's Pines starting with Granny Gap road.

We were greeted with a few nice views, but I think Elmer and Mark were getting tired of sucking dust.

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About 30 miles on graded roads found us looking for a more interesting route back. Unfortunately something on this route jumped up and bit Mark's front tire. We had it fixed before Elmer could finish his pipe!

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We turned onto a smaller track and did a few river crossings and puddle hopping before heading back to Mack's. Daren and Tom, this is the fast route with all the little jumps we did on Sunday AM. I'll have to look up the correct route number.

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On Sunday Mark would find that the center of this puddle is signifiantly deeper.:eek2:
 
Many thanks to Pigtrail for leading great rides from Mack's Pines and Dover. Wish I had a GPS and the skill of Pigtrail for navigating. Seems I spent almost as much time on the ground as upright, gave Chris quite a workout helping me pickup the heavy KLR repeatedly. Friday was a great ride for the 4 of us but challenging due to dust at dusk and Marks flat front tire. Saturday went very well with 8 riders following Pigtrail thru the rain over county roads till lunch at Oark where we had some fine viddles, and a good rest while a rear tire flat was repaired. After Lunch we tackled more challenging backtrails wherein I promptly bit the dust from a vengeful rut. Sunday was a beautiful day and we had a group of 6 for some fast county roads and challenging sidetrails. I say challenging trails, Mark flooded his airbox in a deep waterhole, I went down 3 times on a trail with 5 boulder strewn water crossings, and got so tired someone had to ride my KLR outa one. Sorry no pictures from me this trip, but I have memories to savour. Thanks Pigtrail and Chris for some neat rideabouts.:clap:
 
Same as Roy88ale said- thanks pigtrail for taking us on some great trails. It is really nice to follow someone who knows where they are going- I usually spend equal time getting "unlost". Looking forward to the next ride.
 
Saturday was not looking promising in the weather department. Heavy rain on the radar west of us loomed large, but we headed to Dover to meet everyone at the Phillips station. We looked out from under the cover of the station as the front blew in...

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After about 30 minutes jabbering with the locals and the cops we decided to set out into the rain. It was soft rain for about 5 minutes and then it let loose for about an hour. We rode along the AR TAT route to the Oark store, but between fogging goggles, the low clouds shrouding the views, and the rain, I doubt we saw much besides the gravel and greenery along the trail. A few rest stops allowed us to adjust wet gear.

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As we rolled into Oark the clouds parted and blue sky began to smile down. THis would be the last rain we saw all weekend...almost worth it to keep the dust down!

From Oark we headed south on 123 and then turned east on Low Gap Road. We took this to Apple road which was a real treat.

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So Richard, how did the 400 perform during the longer routes? I still havent ridden my 400 on a longer ride.... or scratch that.... at all since the changes. :eek2:
 
I've got a 16t front and a 45t in the back on 130/90 rear tire and it RIPS down the fire roads. It'd be tough to keep the front wheel on the ground with woods gearing. I got 141 miles before hitting reserve with a 4 gallon tank, but that was a whole day of WOT turn to turn.

I also balanced both tires with some Barnett spoke wheel weights and feel like this made a BIG difference. The 440 and mikuni were worth every cent.
 
:tab I bet you missed the very end of Apple Rd. Unless you were really looking for it, you would not see it where the road turns to the East and becomes CR 381. That last little bit of Apple Rd., is scarcely more than a trail through the weeds for about 1/2 mile. We ran it when I was up there at the end of June. Just East of Apple Rd., is Wiemer Rd., which is also a lot of fun. It eventually drops you out on Hwy 21 South of Ozone.

:tab Looking over my few pictures, I am really disappointed that I did not get many good ones. I guess I was really just too focused on the riding and coming up with a route on the fly. Amazingly, particularly in light of the rain, I don't think we did any water crossings of significance all weekend. We only saw about 10-15 minutes of light rain while riding.
 
Yup, we hit Weimer road to the east...a good one.

Saturday evening we sat on the porch eating venison sausage, goldfish, and a few tecates while a little girl did laps around camp on her four-wheeler. Each time she'd hit the puddle with a little more throttle. I gotta get me some of them leopard print boots...think Alpinestar has that color?

Sunday rolls around and our group got significantly smaller. 6 of us set out from Dover and headed NE through Scottsville where we turned north into the mountains. We spent the remainder of our morning picking our way north to finally arrive at Hankins country store just as it opened at about 12:45. Along the way we saw some buffalo and did a slew of creek crossings with plenty of baby head size boulders thrown into the mix.

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The most interesting part of the came later.

So I own two Honda bikes, but I see all these KTM guys riding around with big grins like they know something I don't. Turns out that this very afternoon I learned their secret.

KTM's run on beer.

Chris ran out of beer while out on the trail and in short order Daren pulled up to give him some more.

Empty out of orange colored bike one....

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and pour directly into bike #2. Must be a light low calorie variety.

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Waala. Bike runs again!

Chris found that half of a six-pack was plenty to get him the 10 miles home. :lol2: Now that's livin the high life!
 
You know what they say, what is the best kind of beer, no not free beer. It is beer that will run in your average orange wheelie machine...
 
You would think those fancy high priced Orange bikes wouldn't run on the cheap stuff!:mrgreen:
 
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