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- Gibbens
First Ride of the Central TX KLR 650 Riders group
We recently began organizing the KLR riders in Central Texas in order to arrange group rides, conduct tech days, and get together for other activities. We set ourselves up as a google group (Central TX KLR 650 riders) and Saturday, Nov. 12th was our first organized ride as a group (edit - For anyone who may be interested there is now a Central Texs DS riders forum in the special interests section of this web site). Though rain threatened during the morning, it turned out to be a very pleasant weather day in the Central Texas hill country and when I finally arrived back home this evening I had traveled 257 miles today. This was a bit further than we had originally intended to ride, but I’m not complaining – I had a great time. I thought I would share today’s trip and some of the pictures I took. Hope you enjoy them.
A total of nine of us rode today. I had taken the initiative to organize this ride and since I live in southwest Austin I chose as our meeting place the most common motorcycle meeting place on this side of town – the famous “Y” in Oak Hill. 8 of us met here, and our 9th rider, Ron, met us about 30 minutes up the road.
As this was our first ride together, most of us didn't know most of us. We started off with introductions all around, so I will do the same with my trip report.
Robert has a very interesting camo paint job on his ’88. Robert actually has 2 KLRs, both painted the same camo scheme. Robert was only able to ride a few miles with us before he had to head back home – his wife had made plans for them and he didn’t want to disappoint her.
Earlier this week I was driving home after work and I spotted a fellow riding a KLR going in the same direction as me. Traffic wasn’t too tight and I was able to finally catch up with him. Once I pulled alongside of him I honked my horn to get his attention and then gave him a big “thumbs up” signal. He was wearing an old-school helmet, the open face kind, with a big clear face shield. He smiled, waved and then traffic separated us and we each went our own ways. At the time I wished that I had some way to let him know about our group and see if he was interested in riding with us. Surprise, surprise, but who should show up this morning in the same, easily recognized, old-school white open face helmet? Turns out his name is Randy and he had already joined our group.
I met Billy at a convenience store in Dripping Springs a couple of weeks ago. I was on a ride with my brother-in-law and we were stopped for a soda when Billy pulled up on his “ready for a trip to Moab at anytime” KLR. Billy’s enthusiasm for Moab has got me to thinking that Moab needs to be moved much higher on my “must ride” list.
Marko has a sweet lime green ride. Today was his first foray in the dirt and he acquitted himself quite well while giving his KLR its first taste of dirt.
Terry and Steve trailered the bikes up from Houston last night so they could ride with us today. It was the first time either of them had ridden in the Hill Country. If you’ve ever been to South Texas you know it is pancake flat. The only elevation changes are the highway overpasses. No kidding. So Steve and Terry were in motorcycle heaven today with all the hills, scenery, and elevation changes. I suspect that today probably hooked them on riding here more often.
Terry has a really nice ’05 KTM 950 Adventure. I couldn’t believe it when late in the day he let me ride it. Dang, that’s a great bike. Thanks, Terry!
Steve has a sweet lime green ride too. He picked it up in September, so he doesn’t have much time on this bike yet.
Here's Ken. Note his draggin' jeans. Ken tells me they are kevlar reinforced and padded. If you like to ride in jeans, these look like a darn good choice and offer much more protection than a regular pair of Levis.
Ron joined us at our stop at the ghost town Cypress Mill post office. Ron has 175 acres of ranch land and bought his daughter a dirt bike to ride around the place. A little while later he decided he needed a bike too so he could ride with her. The KLR fit his needs perfectly. He says the daughter gave up dirt bikes but he kept the KLR and apparently he rides quite a bit because he sure seemed to know the roads in the area very well. He ran sweeper for most of the rest of the day and I’m pleased to say that under his watchful eye we didn’t lose a single person today. Thanks Ron.
Okay, now that the intros are out of the way, here are some of the details of today's ride.
A quick ride north on 71 from the “Y” and we arrived at Hamilton Pool Road. This road is a nice, sweeping road that is popular with motorcyclists of all types. After enjoying the twists and turns we hung a left on CR 301 at Cypress Mill, where we met up with Ron. There is a sign that says "pavement ends" as you turn onto CR 301, but it's not true. Unfortunately, the road has been paved all the way through now. It's a nice road, mind you, just no dirt.
You can see the old Cypress Mill post office and general store in the background.
These old gas pumps at the Cypress Mill post office and gas station have been out of service a day or two. Unleaded was marked at 66 cents and the high octane stuff was 69 cents. How long has it been since you paid 66 cents for a gallon of gas?
After negotiating some other paved but still fun to ride hill country roads, we finally reached the dirt portion of our journey. Parts of Althus Davis road, country road (CR) 309, and CR 315 are all graded dirt/rock roads. Miles and miles of graded dirt roads. I say this because public graded dirt roads are a increasingly scarce thing here in Central Texas. The vast majority have been paved now, so it’s becoming much tougher to find ones to ride on. There are lots and lots of dirt roads on private property, but few public ones remain.
CR 315 crosses Sandy Creek twice. Sandy Creek is exactly as the name implies – sandy. It’s a really wide creek that is dry except following rain. The road surface crossing the creek is loose sand, dirt, and rock. Prior to crossing we took a much needed break, as we had been riding for about 1.5 hours non-stop to reach this point.
My KLR in front of the warning sign at the first creek crossing.
The group taking a break prior to crossing Sandy Creek for the first time.
I decided to get some action shots of each member crossing the creek. I was hoping that no one would fall, but if one of us would have fallen the camera would have caught all the action. As it turned out we all successfully negotiated both creek crossings.
My KLR looking back on the creek crossing. I know the warning sign said a 4 wheel drive was needed, but the truth is you don't need a 4 wheel drive if you've got a KLR.
Billy crossing.
Randy and his old-school helmet making easy work of the crossing.
Steve’s "2 month old and never been dropped" KLR earning its keep.
Terry and his lone KTM making the Austrians proud.
Ken making it look easy.
Just prior to the pic Marko got his bike a little sideways and was throwing some roost with his back tire, but everything was settled down by the time I snapped this pic.
Ron pulling sweep, looking as natural as can be on this type of terrain.
The group re-assembled after crossing the creek, none the worse for the wear.
The next item of business was lunch. We negotiated another mile or two of dirt on CR 315 and then made a bee-line for Llano, searching for food. We reached Llano, TX after having been on the road for 3 hours, with about 1.5 hours of that being dirt. All that riding makes a man hungry, so the world famous Coopers BBQ was just the ticket. Despite arriving at 1 p.m. there was a long line of folks waiting to eat. Somehow our group managed to behave itself until it was our time to order and eat.
From left to right – Billy in the green hat, Ken, Steve, Terry in the Styx t-shirt (wonder how long he’s had a Styx t-shirt? Are they still a group?), and Marko holding the helmet.
If you haven’t eaten at Cooper’s Old Time BBQ in Llano yet just know that it’s worth the trip. Their peach cobbler is good enough to write home about.
I didn’t get to the top of the food chain just to become a vegetarian.
The way Coopers works is they cook all the meat on that open pit you see in the picture. Once it's your turn, you indicate to the man what meats you want and how much of it that you want. He cuts off any pieces you want and puts it on one of those red trays you see in the foreground of the picture. If you want him to, he will dip the meat in their rub sauce in the big pan you see in the lower right corner of the picture. Once you have your meat you take it inside where it is cut up into slices for you. Select your sides, get the drink of your choice, pay your bill, grab a seat and enjoy.
After lunch, our journey of discovery and adventure continued. We decided to alter our route and try to go cross country on a small little CR indicated on the map. None of us had been on this road before and one thing about the map is that while the road may be there (or may not), it might also have a locked gate on it. Some (many?) of the roads shown on the map start off as CR but then turn into private roads that have locked gates. There is no way to tell in advance which roads this is true for and which are CRs the entire way through.
This CR crossed a valley and then climbed a nice hill. Here’s the view looking back on the valley we had just crossed.
Another shot, same view.
Another shot, same valley. Billy telling me to hurry up and take the picture.
As it turned out, this CR was one of those that ended at a gate. So we made a u-turn and retraced our tracks all the way back to Llano. From there we ran 29 over to Park Road 4 and Inks Lake. Then it was cross country over to Blanco, on to Lago Vista, and finally a spirited running of the wonderful Lime Creek Road. Unfortunately, that’s it for pictures. After taking the above valley view pictures we rode for another 3 hours and I didn’t take another picture. Sorry. Time was getting late, we were racing the sun to try and get home before dark (missed it by about 30 minutes), so I stepped the pace up and kept us moving briskly from here on out.
All in all, it was a great outing – at least for me. The day was a bit longer than I had originally suggested (the unsuccessful side trip down the locked gate CR added an hour to our trip), so I have to work on time management / route management skills. Even so, I think our ride today was enjoyed by all the participants and I’m looking forward to many more.
I love the camo job though!
That is basically what I did for TWT. Printed up my own cards and started handing them out to everyone I met. I used to chase bikes down and flag them over 
