The North Central Texas 800 One Day

The goal: ride 800 miles of North Central Texas roads in one calendar day, with as much dirt as possible.

I've been planning this since January when Jerrybo posted the tracks on this thread: Lubbock - Fort Worth Loop
You can find the backstory to the ride there, but basically I picked June 22 as the date because it was the longest day of the year and had a full moon.

Friday morning, June 21, 2013 Gary (Bwdmax) picked me up and we proceeded to trek to the start location in Benbrook. We arrived at the hotel at the far eastern terminus of the track around 2pm, checked in, and tried to get some sleep. I slept for about 3 hours but Gary was too pumped and only slept an hour or so. We ate dinner around 7, watched some tv and tried to get a little more rest before the 11pm wake time. Gary snored for about an hour and I rested nicely but didn't sleep.

Wildernessrider (Donny) called around 11pm and said he was on his way to meet us as he had staged at his daughter's house in Weatherford.

Gary and I geared up and unloaded the bikes. We meet Donny at the gas station across from the hotel at 11:45. We filled the tanks, I slammed a cup of coffee, and we pointed the bikes toward the track.

I was on a CRF450X, Gary was on a KTM525, and Donny was on a Husky Terra. Gary and I had gps and extra lighting, Donny had the best saddle.

At 12:00am we reset the gps and rolled out of the parking lot, apprehensive yet excited for what was to come: The toughest endurance challenge we had ever faced on two wheels.

Alright! New territory and spirited riding. I'm in.

The first 45 miles were all paved, so we had a chance to settle into a groove.

Gary and I took turns leading since we had gps, and Donnie alternated between 2nd and sweep.

Our lighting was working well so we were making good time, but when we transitioned to the gravel roads the riders in the rear were riding into a cloud of blinding dust. We spread out or rode in the opposite track to stay out of the dust, but this was going to be a fact of life for the next 5 hours. Sometimes I would turn off my floodlight and punch through the dust with the HID, and other times I would use the flood and kill the HID. Since the leader had good visibility there were a lot of times we would just chase the taillight without seeing the road beneath our wheels.

Around 2am Donny took a trip into the ditch when his front end washed out on a right hand turn. He kept the bike upright, but as soon as he got out of the ditch he stopped to find that his front tire was flat. We pulled off the road into a driveway and got to work changing the tube. Less than 30 minutes later we were back on the road.

Technology is a wonderful thing. I don't think this trip would have been feasible in the time frame we attempted if we had been working off of paper maps. There were just to many turns to get right the first time. It's very easy to see when you are off track, so you just turn around and get back on course (in the back of the pack this time) if you blow by a turn.

Also, with the gps leading the way we could push the pace, hitting 70mph+ on many of the straights, even the short ones and those with rolling hills that blocked our vision. At the 800ft scale, if there was not a turn indicated I had at least 15 seconds at 70mph before I needed to glance at it again. In the curvier sections I had an idea of how sharp and what direction the curve would be.

I was using a Garmin Oregon 300 handheld with a set of Lithium batteries (that lasted me all day long) on a Ram Mount. Gary was using a Garmin Montana 650 on a hardwired AMPS RAM mount. Donny was using the leader's taillight.

There was a lot of wildlife enjoying the cool night air and the full moon, and we had many close calls during the first 6 hours of the ride.

Early on two deer crossed the road in front of me as we were running full bore. I had seen them and had slowed up a little, as it looked like they were going to jump the fence and clear my path with a lot of room to spare. The young buck in back mis-timed his jump and landed on the top of the barbed wire fences right in his belly. His hooves were pedaling the air frantically as he slid forward off the fence. It was painfully comical, but his delay was costing me distance. I was still slowing down as he hit the ground and bolted across the road about 10 feet in front of me and dove through the fence on the other side of the road. We saw at least 10 deer before sunrise, but that was the closest call we had with them.

As far as other wildlife, we saw and almost hit it all. Five or six raccoons were near misses (I don't know how I missed one of them), as well as squirrels, armadillos, snakes (copperhead, rattler, coral), tarantulas, and a couple domesticated dogs.

The closest call with a wild critter all day long was to be had by Gary. It was shortly after Abilene that the sun started to rise and we were able to relax just a little. I was leading and we came to a turn with an old cinderblock building whose east wall had collapsed. We were making great time so I figured we could pull in for a photo. Instead of getting on the radio I waved for the guys to stop, which they interpreted as a 'go ahead'. Gary and Donny sped down the farm road and I gunned it to catch up.

There was a treed fenceline on the left side of the road and a small ditch with open farmland to the right. While we were running full speed a boar came charging out of the treeline right at Gary, at about a 45% angle to the road. Gary got off the gas and started to drift to the right, but the boar kept sliding over into his path and there was a moment when he had to decide to sideswipe the boar or hit the ditch at 50+. Gary tucked his toe into the case, whacked the throttle, and punched that hog with his footpeg. The hog squealed crazily as it rolled and flipped 15 yard down the road before gathering it's feet and hightailing it back to the treeline.

We stopped a few turns later to get our hearts out of our throats and to get a few snacks in our bellies. We all agreed that the outcome could have been much, much worse, and then I blamed GreenEggs&Ham for cursing us, as he specifically told us to watch out for hogs.

RollingJ said:

We stopped a few turns later to get our hearts out of our throats and to get a few snacks in our bellies. We all agreed that the outcome could have been much, much worse, and then I blamed GreenEggs&Ham for cursing us, as he specifically told us to watch out for hogs.

Click to expand...

Thanks Sam

I'll let Joel continue to tell the tale for now.

Yes...

We had traveled about 250 miles in the darkness and all of us had found the ditch at one time or another. Donny's was due to a flat front and Gary and I overcooked turns and found ourselves sliding in the marbles. My ditch mishap had me rolling over a prickly pear and barely missing a 3 foot boulder. Gary just rode it out like he meant it. None of us went down. The only spot with any traction all morning was the inside edge of the corner, so we dove to the bottom and watched for oncoming headlights.

So now the sun was up, the wildlife was behind us, and we had to put the hammer down. The story of long distance riding with a time limit is one of consistency. You get to speed, brake late in the corner, repeat. The other factor is tail-bone management, and while we stood as much as we could, we were starting to feel the hours.

We had to re-route around 7am when one of the tracks appeared to take us down a driveway, but there was another county road to the left that led us back to the track without having to retreat.

The terrain changed from flat cropland to rolling ranchland. We started to cross a lot of cattle guards into open range. The occurrence of cowpies in the road became more regular, and every once in a while we would see cattle near the road.

We kept pushing forward with the throttle open.

The longest stretch between gas stops was 128 miles between Aspermont and Post, the halfway point. Gary was kind enough to mention as we were about to leave Aspermont that his gps showed the next gas stop to be only 60 miles away. Of course that is a straight shot and that was not our plan, but every time we turned to the south for the next 2 hours I was aware that we were getting farther away from our next destination.

This section continued the rolling ranchland theme, and there were many long straits followed by hairpin turns around deep gullies. It was as if the roads used to go straight through and the earth had opened up tremendous gashes, necessitating following their rims to get back to our westward journey.

We reached Hwy 84 some time around 10am. We rode the slab that led straight to Post for 15 miles or so and then turned off for the last stretch of gravel before our lunch break. 5 miles later we came to a large orange gate that was very locked and labeled very clearly 'No Trespassing'. There was a gate to the side that was unlocked and was passable, but the road looked to lead right by a very large house that we assumed was the ranch owners residence. We consulted the gps devices, and decided to turn back to the highway.

There was a county road a mile north of where we re-entered the highway and that is all I was thinking about as I pulled right in front of a pickup doing 70. I swear I looked, but I never saw him until he was filling my doubletake mirror. He braked hard while I dropped a gear and whacked the throttle. Disaster averted, I waved my apologies as he passed.

We turned onto our alternate dirt road, County Road 340, which was not on the track but looked like a nice diversion from slabbing it. It turned into the best road of the day. The road looked barely traveled and ran through a bunch of pump jacks. There were numerous gates that were open and we just kept riding through them, following what my gps showed to be a county road. We got to a gate that was closed, but on closer inspection it was only latched, not locked. I opened it, we passed through and I closed it behind me. The road turned into a sand wash that looked like it have not been ridden in years. It was all washed out and rutted sand, beautiful....

We kept riding past pump jacks hoping that there was an unlocked gate at the exit. We ended up following a truck the last couple hundred yards to the exit and made our escape.

10 more miles of slab that found Gary tipping his bike to get to the last remaining dregs of fuel and we were filling our tanks and breaking for lunch, 426 miles behind us.

And then, and then?

Very awesome dudes! Clearly no shortage of these:


Looks like it made you expert in reading the terrain and status of roads and gates.

More skewered hogs! Whoo hoo!

By the time we stopped for lunch it was 11am and we had completed a little more than half the ride. A little math told us that if we were able to continue averaging 50mph moving we should make it back to the hotel in Fort Worth a little after 8pm, possibly before dark set in. Our gas stops were taking longer each and every time due to having to tell the tale of our journey to every teller and the fact that we were walking slower and slower, but that was okay. The 24 hour goal was well within our reach, even if we needed to pull over and take a power nap on the side of the road.

We just needed to stay accident free, rely on the extensive preparation we had done to the steeds, and continue to push the pace.

Our bodies and minds were holding up well except for the posterior parts. Surprisingly we weren't tired or losing focus, and the thought of heading back east had us putting the gear back on and throwing a leg over the saddle after 30 a minute lunch break.

We headed north out of Post and enjoyed a little bit of slab, which promptly turned west. We alternated this north and west direction until the moment came to turn east on a sandy gravel road, and we grabbed a handful of throttle and took advantage of the fact that this section was mostly straight to the horizon. We were staying at 75mph for most of the hour and heading due east.

We had to re-route again when the track tried to lead us down a road that didn't exist. We only had to backtrack a couple miles after spending a few minutes driving around in circles amongst the pump jacks, but it wasn't so bad. I'm glad that Gary and I were running different map versions in our Garmins, because my version showed an easy re-route and his would have taken us many miles out of the way.

About this time we came across a couple water crossings. The road would be dead straight and then cut sharply into a gully. Gary was in the lead and quickly found out that the bottom of the first crossing was a little bit slick. As he as throttling out the back end let loose and swung wildly to the right. He wasn't traveling but 10mph so he planted his left foot which caused the bike to swing even farther out of line. He ended up dropping the bike and taking a knee, but he kept his hand on the clutch and never stalled the bike. This turned out to be the only time all day that a handlebar touched the ground.

Gary picked up the bike and didn't even look back at us, knowing I was rocking a Contour helmet camera. I didn't get the fall, but I did catch him in the water!

The next crossing was a little bit deeper and Gary paused a moment before riding though clean.

sounds like a good ride

Why does it seem that every other cattle guard is in the middle of a corner?

We were in cattle county in a big way, and open range riding was the order of the afternoon. The first to get spooked was Donny. Gary and I must have startled these two ninja cows because we never saw them but they bolted from the mesquite trees along the road and almost took out the Husky.

A short time later we came across a donkey in the road, and then three horses. I came to a crawl, but the horses took off down the road, jumped a cattle guard and ran toward the first house I had seen in ages. We moved on with a quickness.

There was a section of road in Stonewall County that was 30 miles of endless curves, rises and dips. This was probably the most fun section of the day, save for Garza County road 340. The road was rough and occasionally washed out, but fairly wide and a good quick pace was easy to maintain. If there had been a recent rain there would have been quite a few small water crossings. I think we averaged 35mph or so through there.

The road opened back up so we picked up the pace again, only to come around a corner to find 15 head of cattle hanging out on the road. They started running down the road, with 10 splitting off to the right and 5 staying to the left. I saw my chance and split the herd before the smaller group could rejoin the rest.

We got back to hauling the mail, and a few minutes later two more ninja cows jumped out of a mesquite tree and the calf bolted right toward my line. I had too much momentum to stop and was too close to steer away so I prepared for the crash and veered ever so slightly to the right. That calf must have known I have been living right and that my wife won't let me eat veal, because it planted it's hooves in the ground and stopped with just enough room for me to clear. My compatriots cleared as well and at the next intersection I had to stop to remove my heart from my throat.

We were 600 miles in for the day, and we started to clear cattle country and get back to farmland.

I can't stress enough how much pain I was in by this point. Sitting was rough as my tailbone had taken a beating, the seams on my seat were wearing grooves in my cheeks, and the transition to standing was almost as grinding as the transition back to seating. We were well beyond the 'one cheek sneak' and the 'straddled semi-sidesaddle' and into the realm of the 'clench-kneed hiney float' and the 'get-over-it-you-did-this-to-yourself' denial strategy. Gary was right there with me, and Donny didn't have seat troubles but his back kept cramping up.

I haven't mentioned the dust in a while, so I will take a moment to restate. It was very dry and dusty all day long. There had been some rains a few days prior and there was water in some of the ditches and a few muddy, rutted spots in the road, but it did nothing to reduce the cloud of white powder that coated every inch of everything and relentlessly found it's way past the foam of my goggles and into my eyes. We didn't talk much about it, but at every stop Gary was cleaning his goggles and Donnie was wiping down his face shield.

All we could do was to keep on keeping on, ride as fast as the road would allow, and to do our best to ignore it.

Mind over butt... mind over butt... mind over butt...

Yeah, been there done that

We were blazing along this straight section at 65mph through barren cropland and we came to a crossroad that was a little different than those we had been flying through. This one had the side ditches across our path instead of with our path. I saw it in time to lighten the front end a little bit but I bottomed the suspension twice in rapid succession. I didn't loose control or think anything of it, until a few hundred yards later I felt something tapping me in the back of my leg. Gary got on the radio to let me know that my taillight/brakelight was hanging free and about to be lost, so I pulled over to check it out.

The CRF has a tiny little taillight that rides in a hole in the rear plastic fender. They make a trick taillight/brakelight combo that replaces the stock unit and doesn't add any weight to the bike. It works flawlessly, but when you mount a rear fender bag and stuff it with a quart of oil, tube, irons, pump, and your tool roll the fender flexes enough when you bottom the suspension that the rear tire will grab the mounting bolts, rip a hole in your fender, and toss the light into your chain.

Amazingly the light still worked and the bolts were still on the mounting bracket, so I put it back in place, took the oil out of the fender bag, put it in my Camelbak, and ziptied the wires back in place. I crossed my fingers and we got back on the throttle.

Our next gas stop was in only a few miles down the road in Knox City. When we were looking over the bikes we found that Donny's license plate had been sucked into his tire as well. The plate was hanging by one bolt and the plate hanger/lower fender assembly was cracked and about to let go. He stuck the plate in his backpack, ziptied the fender to the rear rack, gassed up and we hit the road.

The stretch from Knox City to Graham, our last gas stop, was without any real drama. We were eating up the miles in rapid succession and enjoying heading in a mostly Southeast direction. The roads were twisty and loose in spots, but to be quite honest I had seen so many turns on gravel roads in the day that nothing really stands out.

We crossed one river on a new concrete bridge and the old bridge was still standing off our left. I was so very tempted to bypass the barriers and ride across the old thing, but Gary convinced me that I just might pick up a nail on the dilapidated structure. I howled at the humanity of it all and we got back to rocking. Just a few miles later we crossed another (maybe the same) river and there was the superstructure of another old bridge that had failed tilting into the water. I asked Gary if I could try to cross that one, but I didn't hear his reply in the radio above the din of my tears. I should have crossed the first one, and that is my only regret on the day.

We had to drive around Graham a bit to find the open gas station. It was 6pm and we had about 105 miles to go. We might make it home before dark! As I looked over my bike I began to strongly hope we could, since my taillight was now missing completely and I really didn't want to get pulled over within sight of the finish.

We gassed up for the last time of the day, grabbed a snack, and headed out of town.

I was determined to keep a good pace. The first 10 miles out of Graham were sand farm access roads. It looked like exactly one truck had ridden down these roads since the last rain, and he had done it when the sand was still very wet. I rode between the ruts until I came to the still muddy depressions when I jumped into his track. We got back to pavement and I started to get up to speed.

The guys were hanging back so I stopped and Gary radioed to say that Donnie's tailbag was riding on his muffler. He immediately added that Donny's rear tire was flat.

This was the toughest moment of the day for me, as I was ready to go for broke. What can you do though? These things happen and as a team we can get it taken care of and get back on the road.

We found a driveway where we could work and Donny limped his bike to it. As they were getting tools out I found an old truck tire to rest the bike on after we pulled the rim. I offered to change this tube but Gary was already on it. There was a rusty piece of wire or nail that had completely split the tube and the rim strip was broken. The tube had been slimed so the rim was a mess. They cleaned it up and used every inch of duct tape we had to make a new rim strip. Donnie whipped out his last tube and Gary remounted the tire to the rim. I held the bike on the kickstand as they aligned the axle. They buttoned up the bike and the tools and we got ready to go.

That stop took us almost an hour, and we had 95 miles to go.

RollingJ said:

We crossed one river on a new concrete bridge and the old bridge was still standing off our left. I was so very tempted to bypass the barriers and ride across the old thing, but Gary convinced me that I just might pick up a nail on the dilapidated structure. I howled at the humanity of it all and we got back to rocking. Just a few miles later we crossed another (maybe the same) river and there was the superstructure of another old bridge that had failed tilting into the water. I asked Gary if I could try to cross that one, but I didn't hear his reply in the radio above the din of my tears. I should have crossed the first one, and that is my only regret on the day.

Click to expand...

I hated to be a killjoy but all I could think about was a delay and wanting to make it before dark.


My reply to the second bridge was I don't think you will pick up a nail on that one.

We started to chew up the last section, mile by blistering mile.

There was a lot of pavement through here. We wanted to head straight east, but we turned on to Kinder Mountian Road and track took us north toward the huge wind power generators, then west, then north some more. The roads were great, but we were starting to get seriously beat down. The track turned southeast for a while, the turned northeast toward Jackboro. We rolled through town and picked up Hwy 199 toward Fort Worth.

There was a sign that said that Fort Worth was 62 miles away, and to be honest if the track had taken us that way I would have been happy to slab all 62 miles of it. About a mile later we turned onto 281 and then got back on the county roads with the familiar zig-zag every half mile toward the south and east, mostly packed gravel.

North of Weatherford we lost the sun and the gravel gave way to paved twisties. The end was close at hand. Traction was very nice at the end of the day, and we took advantage of it to get in some spirited riding.

The last few miles we were just putting along in traffic, Gary on my tail to act as my taillight.

We pulled into the hotel at 9:10, having ridden 820 miles in 21 hours 10 minutes. We had a moving average of 50mph, having ridden some 16 hours and 20 minutes according to my gps.

We loaded the bikes, washed our faces, and ate at Chilli's. No one had to rock us to sleep when we got back to the hotel. The mattress was the only reward I could wish for.

I have attached a proven set of tracks if anyone wants to attempt this ride, either in one day or over a series of days.

I cut out all the missed turns and areas we had to backtrack due to locked gates or missing roads, so you should be good to go.

I must mention that while Garza County Road 340 off of Hwy 84 at the far western leg of the route was a real hoot to ride, we rode through many open gates and had to open an unlocked gate to gain passage. You may want to bypass it and stay on Hwy 84 south of Post, but I recommend you try it!

Awesome write up RJ!