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Any Hill Country flowers yet?

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Couldn't get a pic due to insane traffic but. Big patches of blue bonnets at 820 and I30 in East Fort Worth yesterday.
 
Rode Willow City Loop today - big disappointment. Only 2 small fields of bluebonnets. Rest of the loop was bare of any wildflowers. Hwy 16 heading north towards Llano had lots of wildflowers on the sides of the road.
 
16 is usually one of the best viewing areas. Also along 29 between Llano and Burnet, and Park Road 4 as it winds from 29 down to connect with 281. The only 2 times I've been on the Willow City Loop, it's been barren.
 
I saw a lot near Rockdale on 77, but the grass is taller from all the rain. Pull the car over and take our picture sitting in the wildflowers where the rattlesnakes roam :eek2:. I'll leave the car halfway out in the road too. :lol2: The children are covered in fire ants, that's why they are screaming. :-P
 
Blue bonnets along I20 and I10, patches here and there all the way to New Mexico. Didn't see any fields covered. Some Indian Hat, too. Just a few.

Some along US90 from El Paso to Del Rio, then along US277 and US81 to Laredo. Patches here and there, no big spreads.
 
Yesterday there were bluebonnets aplenty between Cherokee and LLano off 16 and also thick tall patches on 29 between Mason and Llano.
 
kickstand~prophet said:
Yesterday there were bluebonnets aplenty between Cherokee and LLano off 16 and also thick tall patches on 29 between Mason and Llano.
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Drew,

Yesterday my wife & I rode the m/c from Kerrville up hwy 16 to San Saba. That stretch of road from Llano to Cherokee was impressive w/ all the wildflowers. Strangely, from Cherokee to San Saba there were few flowers to be seen. If we had not been pressed for time to get home, I would have liked to have taken the road from Llano over to Burnett to see what was in bloom.
 
Saw some nice bluebonnets yesterday along I-35 in West. If you happen to live in Arlington, we have a spectacular patch of them on my church property - on the south side of Pleasant Ridge Road, a block west of Perkins.
 
There are a bunch of Indian paint brushes and bluebonnets right around Babys Head cemetery. A good place to pull over for taking pictures.:photo: 29 had them really really thick right by the road side. Not as scattered out as on 16.
 
Today around brenham Texas :

C5BA7732-95A6-4C4B-B750-53003BF39F84.jpg
 
A few outside of Lampasas on HWY 190 and on the newish loop around Copperas Cove. Nothing like around LLano.
 
xaman said:
Backyard hack... Fun little ride for going slow and smelling the flowers :)
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Nicely done! Has to be the gentlest, most confidence inspiring back road day tour ride ever. Very nice! If Suzuki put something so simple and pleasant in production I'd buy one, but I'm weird enough to have done a SS1000 and a BB1500 on a TW200 with a stock seat, then changed the tires and did Big Bend and Chispa Road with no other changes. Therefore, I see the beauty of your work.

Had a new driver team sweating I10/I20/I30/I40 Tennessee to California so I told them about the wildflowers in Texas. Got a text yesterday about how awesomely beautiful the flowers they saw.
 
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KenH said:
Nicely done! Has to be the gentlest, most confidence inspiring back road day tour ride ever. Very nice! If Suzuki put something so simple and pleasant in production I'd buy one, but I'm weird enough to have done a SS1000 and a BB1500 on a TW200 with a stock seat, then changed the tires and did Big Bend and Chispa Road with no other changes. Therefore, I see the beauty of your work.

Had a new driver team sweating I10/I20/I30/I40 Tennessee to California so I told them about the wildflowers in Texas. Got a text yesterday about how awesomely beautiful the flowers they saw.
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Thanks!

TW200 is an all time favorite of mine too, although that stock seat is a rock :eek2: I'd love to do a cross country backroad only trip on a TW.
 
Wow, looking better and better.

xaman said:
Thanks!

TW200 is an all time favorite of mine too, although that stock seat is a rock :eek2: I'd love to do a cross country backroad only trip on a TW.
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I have 4 TWs. The original now has over 60k on the original top end, but needs a base gasket and carb rework, probably will just do a top end and used carb and keep it close to stock for running errands. Most any TT-R 230 or XT225 engine tweeks can be done to a TW200. I have one 267cc adventure bike with EFI and one 276cc café racer with a Mikuni and composite 16-inch wheels. I'm working on a 267cc dualsport with an ATV tire in the back and the stock 14 in the front. All three strokers have triple disc brakes, 6 speed transmissions, the XT/TT-R clutches with the additional disc, and 520 chains. All but the café racer have kick starts retrofitted. The stocker dynoed just under 13hp, the 267 adventure a bit over 22, and the café racer right around 30. That's a surprising amount of potential for such a simple engine.

As for the seats, triple Stearns ATV seat covers from Walmart help, but the seats are still pains in the apples.
 
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KenH said:
Wow, looking better and better.



I have 4 TWs. The original now has over 60k on the original top end, but needs a base gasket and carb rework, probably will just do a top end and used carb and keep it close to stock for running errands. Most any TT-R 230 or XT225 engine tweeks can be done to a TW200. I have one 267cc adventure bike with EFI and one 276cc café racer with a Mikuni and composite 16-inch wheels. I'm working on a 267cc dualsport with an ATV tire in the back and the stock 14 in the front. All three strokers have triple disc brakes, 6 speed transmissions, the XT/TT-R clutches with the additional disc, and 520 chains. All but the café racer have kick starts retrofitted. The stocker dynoed just under 13hp, the 267 adventure a bit over 22, and the café racer right around 30. That's a surprising amount of potential for such a simple engine.

As for the seats, triple Stearns ATV seat covers from Walmart help, but the seats are still pains in the apples.
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Wow, had no idea you could do all that to a TW. Is your shop for hire??? I need to see your herd!

I just missed a steal in Houston last week -- an 09 with 10k miles for $1500. I'd love to build a little retro scrambler TW, more power would be the bee's knees.



Thanks for the compliments TWTim.
 
xaman said:
Wow, had no idea you could do all that to a TW. Is your shop for hire??? I need to see your herd!

I just missed a steal in Houston last week -- an 09 with 10k miles for $1500. I'd love to build a little retro scrambler TW, more power would be the bee's knees.



Thanks for the compliments TWTim.
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XT225 and TT-R225/230 engine parts will pretty much drop in TW cases with nothing but honing the cylinder liner clearance in the top. I've been told have to use the TW cases to oil the outboard countershaft bearing due to oil passage missing from XT and TT-R cases, but I never even looked. The TW countershaft part where the gears ride can be turned down to match the XT/TT-R countershaft, and the rest of the trans drops right in the TW cases. You can retro the XT/TT-R kick start in the TW cases, except the lever on the outside--the TW lever clears the wide swing arm. The XT/TT-R clutch has a deeper basket, one additional each disc and plate. It is a fantastic upgrade, but you have to use an XT or TT/R right side cover to make room. The bore info came from XR100.com, the stroker info came from ADV. All that big engine stuff is for XTs and TT-Rs, so look for "XT225 stroke crank" type searches. There's just about nothing for TWs, but the engines are about the same. Yamaha even built a TW225 for a few markets, using mostly off-the-shelf parts. I've been told the same engine has been used in some wheelers, so there might be some good mods on Yamaha 200 and 225 wheeler sites. Supposed to be about the same engines. Worth a shot.

Possible misfits are counterbalancers, bigger the engine, bigger the counterbalance shaft, and the primary drives have different gears, but the counts only vary by 1 and some folks claim all combos are compatible. I didn't count the driven gears on the clutch baskets, but I used the sets that came out of each donor since I used the XT cranks. There is also a TW125 engine family spread across several models, but I've seen some warnings the 125 internals and trans are a lot different and not good for 200, 225, and 230 builds.

Hope that helps you find what you need. I did my builds as recovery therapy after significant losses so I can't recall details because my mind was just a little messed up at the time. Just lost interest and never finished the dualsport.
 
KenH said:
XT225 and TT-R225/230 engine parts will pretty much drop in TW cases with nothing but honing the cylinder liner clearance in the top. I've been told have to use the TW cases to oil the outboard countershaft bearing due to oil passage missing from XT and TT-R cases, but I never even looked. The TW countershaft part where the gears ride can be turned down to match the XT/TT-R countershaft, and the rest of the trans drops right in the TW cases. You can retro the XT/TT-R kick start in the TW cases, except the lever on the outside--the TW lever clears the wide swing arm. The XT/TT-R clutch has a deeper basket, one additional each disc and plate. It is a fantastic upgrade, but you have to use an XT or TT/R right side cover to make room. The bore info came from XR100.com, the stroker info came from ADV. All that big engine stuff is for XTs and TT-Rs, so look for "XT225 stroke crank" type searches. There's just about nothing for TWs, but the engines are about the same. Yamaha even built a TW225 for a few markets, using mostly off-the-shelf parts. I've been told the same engine has been used in some wheelers, so there might be some good mods on Yamaha 200 and 225 wheeler sites. Supposed to be about the same engines. Worth a shot.

Possible misfits are counterbalancers, bigger the engine, bigger the counterbalance shaft, and the primary drives have different gears, but the counts only vary by 1 and some folks claim all combos are compatible. I didn't count the driven gears on the clutch baskets, but I used the sets that came out of each donor since I used the XT cranks. There is also a TW125 engine family spread across several models, but I've seen some warnings the 125 internals and trans are a lot different and not good for 200, 225, and 230 builds.

Hope that helps you find what you need. I did my builds as recovery therapy after significant losses so I can't recall details because my mind was just a little messed up at the time. Just lost interest and never finished the dualsport.
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That is wonderful info, thank you very much!
 
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