Things I learned travelling in TX, NM, AZ, and CO...

[treybrad]

You can pack a LOT of stuff on a Bandit if you’re creative:



It’s COLD at elevation, even in August:




Just because a Forest Ranger tells you a road is “no problem” for an overloaded street bike, it doesn’t mean it’s true…



Arizona isn’t ALL desert:



The Grand Canyon really is pretty grand:



The Bandit is not a Strom:



There are some pretty lonely stretches of road out West:



A good fire really makes my night complete:



and, Colorado is a little different from Texas:




Some stats:

• Total Miles: 3,057mi
  
• Avg MPG: 44.6mpg
  
• High MPG: 53.5mpg
  
• Low MPG: 37.1mpg
  
• States ridden in: 5 (TX, NM, AZ, CO and I just poked UT)
  
• Days on the road: 7
  
• Money spent on lodging: $0
  
• Money spent on gas: $263.75 ()

The real ride report is forthcoming. I figured if I posted up an intro, I’ll get off my laurels and do the write up….

Stay tuned,

trey

[bigboy292000]

Awesome! Can't wait!!

[klb1122]

Looking forward to it. I'll be hitting all of those states next year.

[aharbi]

Looking forward to more. Sorry to see the Bandit on it's side. Hope nothing broke. I dunno, the looks of that road, I think my Vee may have a problem too.

[Duke]

Bandit = The New Adventure Bike!

Keep the reporting coming, your off to a great start!

[Texason]

This should be good! I can't wait to hear more about seven days on the road and paying $0 for lodging.

[Tracker]

Good stuff. Your Bandit and my Speed Triple look almost like twins loaded up.

[achesley]

To be honest. I find my bandit to be a bit better on gravel than my DL1000 was. Lower center of gravity maybe. But then, neither one was loaded down as yours was. Only good thing about my DL was suspension travel to soak up big bumps. I kinda miss that but really love my feet being on the ground better with the bandit.
Neat pictures and looked like a great trip. Thanks for sharing. Fantastic mileage.

[jsb223]

Dude...

Did I see a coleman stove on a Bandit?

Great pics...

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by jsb223

Dude...

Did I see a coleman stove on a Bandit?

Great pics...

not just a Coleman but an antique coleman. Notice how thick it is? How else are you suppose to make coffee and cook at the same time?

[NUTT]

Looks real similar to a trip I did back in July, although I cheated and got a hotel room on the last night!

I'm looking forward to the rest of the pics.... I can speak from recent experience that you'll still be in awe in 3 months & you are going to start planning the next trip in your head right about...... NOW.

[ekms377]

[Tracker]

Originally Posted by NUTT

Looks real similar to a trip I did back in July, although I cheated and got a hotel room on the last night!

I'm looking forward to the rest of the pics.... I can speak from recent experience that you'll still be in awe in 3 months & you are going to start planning the next trip in your head right about...... NOW.

+eleventy billion I'm ready to go again.

[Wes]

I went that way over memorial day but we had a crash (brother broke his leg) on day 4 so it got cut short.

So the next best thing...

[TWTim]

When I see a KLR laying on its side, I think, "Cool -- what a tough bike." But when I see a Bandit keeled over, it just makes my spleen hurt.

[treybrad]

Day 1 – Austin, TX to Lincoln National Forest, NM (~Queen, NM) – 536.1 miles

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sadd...2,9.887695&z=7

Gratuitous starting ODO shot:



I’m not quite sure I know what I’m getting myself into…



GPS before I get underway:



It’s a decent day leaving Austin. A little cool, overcast, but no rain to be seen. I left wearing my JR Alter-Ego jacket stripped down to just the mesh and the JR mesh pants I choose for the trip. Pretty chilly, but I was too stubborn and eager to put some distance between myself and home to pull over and make myself comfortable.



Bridge around Llano, TX:



I’d never been a ‘take pics while riding’ guy before, so it took me a while to get the hang of snapping off shots with my left hand.



Turns out I didn’t take too many pics through here because, well, it’s the flat part of Central TX... it's been seen:





But FINALLY, I started to see something other than just flat grass…



I think this was about the time that I got to Iraan, TX, and hit I-10 for about 50 miles. The benefit was I made very good time…



At last, I made it out of my home state, and I reached the New Mexico border:





I went all the way up to Carlsbad, not knowing just how out of the way it was, but it turned out, it was the closest place to get gas and that’d be important later on…

Once I left Carlsbad, I got on some smaller FM type roads that were pretty neat. They snaked though the big, rolling hills of SE New Mexico and were surprisingly scenic.

Speaking of snakes, this little guy had just been run over…



Roads:





About this time I started to get into the fringes of the Lincoln National Forest, which was my destination for the evening.



The roads seem to magically get 10x more interesting once you enter a National Forest, that was a theme throughout the trip that I was always looking forward to…



I found the Ranger Station and spent a good 45 minutes chatting it up with the ranger. He was from Texas, he just spends his summers as a ranger for the National Forest. Pretty cool way to spend your summer I’d say.

<insert picture of the ranger that I forgot to take…>

Around the ranger station I ran into my first gravel for the trip… Nothing bad, but it was a handful on the Bandit so loaded down. It was really small pieces of rock, about an inch deep. I could comfortably cruise around 25-30 mph or so on most of it.

I decided to make the trek to a very secluded camping spot the ranger told me about. There was a short cut out of the park from that site, up a NF road, which I would probably need to take because fuel was becoming a bit of an issue.

Turns out, the closest place with fuel was Cloudcroft, NM, and I didn’t have a spare gas can with me… But I’ll leave that for the next installment….

So I wove my way down the gravel NF roads, thinking I was making quite the little adventurer out of myself, smug in my lack of knowledge of the coming days….

Beautiful scenery right from the NF road leading me to my campsite:





And at last, I made it to my home sweet home for the night:



It was early, around 6pm local time I think. “Nice work Trey,” I thought to myself as I checked the GPS to see just what I had accomplished for the day.





So I began setting up my camp for the evening and in no time, I figured out I was capable of setting up my tent and nothing important fell off that day:



Now, time for some dinner!



SPAM, beans, and rice. Dinner of real men who get things done.



So there I sat, real impressed with myself for not really doing anything except sitting on a motorcycle for 10 hours and not dying.



I thought my first night called for a toast, so I made a fire and wished myself good health:



The National Forest system is quite the resource for cheapskates like me. First and foremost, it’s free, yes, FREE to camp in a NF. There usually aren’t many people around, mainly I think because the sites aren’t very developed. I only stayed in one that had any sort of amenities like a picnic table. But that’s a good thing for weirdo anti-social people such as myself.



Beautiful sunset:





About now I realized, this was pretty much it. I had been going non-stop since 7am this morning, and now, even if I wanted something to do, I was pretty much out of reach of anything. There wasn’t anyone or anything within 20 miles I would guess.

Ahh, time to relax:



I decided I had better call the lady friend and let her know I wasn’t dead on the side of the road somewhere. I had told her I would call her every night and let her know where I was and where I was planning on going the next day just in case the worst were to happen.



Oops. Despite my phone saying I had a bar of service, it wasn’t going to make a call. Trust me, I sat there like an idiot trying for half an hour.

So what to do? Hop on the bike, ride around until I find some more bars of service? Nope, I don’t know if I have enough fuel to get myself out of here tomorrow, I can’t waste it.

So, I go to bed, with a beautiful sunset and a great fire, but a strange looming feeling that there was a multi-state manhunt for me if Sarah thought I was dead.





Day 2 takes me all the way to Clifton, AZ or so, and some of the most incredible roads of the trip… stay tuned. I’ll try to post it up in the next day or so…

trey

[klb1122]

Originally Posted by treybrad

Day 2 takes me all the way to Clifton, AZ or so, and some of the most incredible roads of the trip… stay tuned. I’ll try to post it up in the next day or so…

trey

Nice start.

Looking forward to the next installment.

Clifton, AZ... I'm sensing AZ 191 in the future.

[Tracker]

most excellent.

[TWTourist]

I could have advised you that Queens, NM has no gas but what fun would that have been. There was a good hamburger place there until about a year ago. The one on the left isn't bad.

A buddy of mine crashed last year in the LNF when we were riding one of the roads going to Cloudcroft. I was having a great time on the XT but he was on his GS1200 and working like a dog.

If you come back this way before June let me know, I'm in Carlsbad until then. We can do some more DSing on the Bandits if you like.

[JLS1126]

Ran through the same states earlier this summer...alone like you did - it's a wonderful thing!! Looking forward to the "rest of the story"...