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TShelfer & Morfic Meetup

Joined
Sep 4, 2009
Messages
13,467
Reaction score
2,822
Location
Centennial, CO
First Name
Tim
Last Name
Shelfer
Well, Daniel & I finally found a chance to meet up for a day. I rode down from Arlington, he rode up from San Antonio, & we met in Lampasas for a late breakfast.

Daniel & I hit it off on TWT quite a while back. He's German. And I'm not - I'm Texan from head to toes. But I've lived in Germany 3 different times & love the country. Plus, we're neighbors -- Daniel grew up in Nurnburg, I went to high school in Munich. Well, almost neighbors -- separated by 175 kilometers and a few years, since I graduated high school before he was born.

Just before Lampasas, I came upon a guy on a Goldwing who had run out of gas. With my backrest, I didn't have room to carry him into town. So we exchanged numbers & I hightailed into Lampasas. I was in a convenience store, trying to make a deal to borrow a gas container (which sold for $15) when he texted me that a car had picked him up & given him a lift.

I met up with Daniel at Mickey D's. After a leisurely breakfast, we took a romp along a series of farm to market roads, and one caleche ranch road that left the bikes good & dirty, eventually ending up in Gatesville. We had a nice long lunch at the Feedmill (recommended by Kickstand-Prophet) before parting ways and heading home in what will hopefully be the last 99 degree afternoon heat of 2018.

Sorry - Never thought to stop and take pictures while we were riding the backroads. But everything was dry & dead, anyway. When you've seen one old shriveled up cedar tree, you've seen 'em all.

Inside the Feedmill.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (1) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

Remnants of two chicken fried steaks & some okra that was too hard to stab with a fork.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (2) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

Eternally waiting for the shoe shine boy.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (4) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

Daniel & his F700GS.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (5) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

Me & my Wee.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (7) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

The obligatory selfie. Or is it called a bothy? :ponder:
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (8) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr

The bikes.
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2018-0901 - Lampasas Ride (10) by Tim Shelfer, on Flickr
 
Not much to add other than maybe another angle of the bikes.

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Was great meeting Tim after months and months of it not working out.
It's always great meeting people who are from the city you're in and spent so much time in the country you're from.

Also glad that @kickstand-prophet suggested the Feedmill in Gatesville, I really really enjoyed the fries.
Wife always hates I taste the fries first in new places, but it's always a good sign when the fries don't taste generic. And these certainly did not.

Finally, I have to say, riding home in 100-102F weather made me appreciate my jacket even more, it's great having a 4/4 season jacket for Texas.

Daniel



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Hey guys, great report. Hope for cooler weather in the upcoming months.

Riding and eating are a good thing :thumb:

I had successful a whitewing hunt in devine tx on sunday and thought it would be cooler riding than it was out in that sunflower field. We had clouds so it was 97 rather than triple digits but still plenty hot when standing still.
 
Hey Tim, who made your backrest? I'd like to get something like that for my 310GS.

Good luck! I bought it from a guy named Dan Vesel. He ran a company out of his garage, manufacturing interesting peripheral parts for VStroms, KLRs, and I think maybe Versys. Backrests, forward pegs, wind deflectors, and a few other things. He was located near Seattle. And I say "was" because I think he may be retired now.

One of the reasons I stick to my VStrom through thick & thin is that backrest; at age 67, I couldn't imagine riding long distance without it. And I've had no success finding similar items for any other bikes except Harleys.

If you're ever up my way, you're welcome to swing by. We can hold my backrest next to your seat & see if it's even a remotely close fit. If so, you might still be able to score one from Dan (I have his email somewhere) and get somebody who does metal fabricating to build the attachment points for you.
 
That would be great, Tim. I'm going to be in Plano for work late Tuesday through Friday 5pm.

Is there a good evening for you this week?
 
Tomorrow (Tue) would be the only possible day this week. After that I'll be out of pocket - having surgery later this week. I'll PM address & cell # to you.

By the way, I looked and can't find hide or hair of Dan Vesel. If I can find it, I can give you his old email address & maybe he still has one of these knocking around. Otherwise, you can go to Stromtroopers or ADVRiders, and maybe get lucky & somebody will sell you one used.
 
For once, I was following instead of leading. Maybe Daniel will post up the route.
 
TShelfer & Morfic Meetup

Glad you liked it. What roads did you ride? KP



I can link the GPX of what I intended to ride while deviating I also tore the current trip into two pieces so I can't post the actual route we took, but 97% of planned route is what we rode.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hZ1MfFjiffWbg5mXMWttKAcNR6PGPRXl

I was very happy to see Scenic chose FM580, which was part of your suggestions.
Rest is me adding waypoints to stretch the route out. So we aren't in Gatesville too quick.

Two caliche roads included, first I skipped and we stayed on 183, tried to keep that Strom clean.
Second we rode, as I didn't want to ride blind again (user error on first route deviation, canceling route, realized mistake later)

Edit: Pidcoke was in another possible route (I had three saved, we rode the longest of the three, which went off 580 before Pidcoke)

Edit2: Looking at it now, we didn't save much going straight instead of taking CR154.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
For those that are curious but don't want to look at the GPX:

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
FM 580 either direction is one of my favorites close to home. Glad you liked it. Try the other side next time you get this way.
 
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