Beyond EPIC - a weekend hill country dual sport ride

[Trail Boss]

Beyond epic?

A while back I was perusing a Ride Texas magazine when I came across a ride report about central Texas. The guy who wrote the story had flown into Austin, rented a Harley, and he and his son (who lived in Austin and owned a cruiser) headed 20 miles west to Mansfield Dam. Upon reaching Mansfield Dam and snapping a few pictures, the writer declared their ride to be "already epic".

Wow! Already epic after just 20 miles of urban, paved road riding? I didn't realize how little it takes for a ride to reach epic proportions.

You know its true because it was published in a magazine.

If 20 miles of highway riding is EPIC, then our 600+ mile, 2 day, hill country dual sport ride surely qualifies as BEYOND EPIC!

So, join our group of 12 as we spin an unbelievably enthralling Beyond Epic tale of dirt, sweat, and gears. You will be thrilled with stories of:

beyond epic new saddlebags

beyond epic group photos

beyond epic lunch at Sonic

beyond epic water crossings

beyond epic dirt roads

beyond epic beer drinking and story telling

And much, much more beyond epic stuff!

With the beyond epic stage set, let's get started...

 

[Pooh Bear]

Crap, I can't believe I missed this with Dan. I just got my GPS today! Can't wait to hear the full story!!!

 

[Trail Boss]

The right side plastic on the old model KLR has a problem. If you put a saddlebag on it, it presses up against the muffler and melts. Not a good thing.

The solution is to attach aftermarket brackets that keep the saddlebags off the side plastic panels.

Did they fix this problem on the '08 KLRs? I had heard conflicting reports - some said that the plastic still gets melted on the '08s if you don't have a bracket, others said the new, beef-up plastic was strong enough to support the weight of saddlebags.

As we all know, KLR riders are cheap, so I bought a $40 pair of ATV tank bags to use as saddlebags for my upcoming Mexico trip in October. None of those expensive $205 Dirt Bagz for me. No, Sir! And, upholding the honor and prestige of the KLRista everywhere, I bought them on close-out for $24. How's that for being a cheap _____ (fill in the blank)?

Here's how they look on the bike. They will never be that clean again.

Is the plastic strong enough to support the weight? Will the bottom of the bag - the part that extends below the plastic - get too hot and melt?

After 2 days of riding, the plastic held the weight and didn't melt. The bottom of the bag got hot, but not too hot, and didn't melt. All in all, a success.

If I put more weight in the bag it might be a different story, though, so I'd like to have a set of brackets just to be safe.

 

[Trail Boss]

8 of us met Saturday morning in the parking lot of Jim's Restaurant. Ironbutt impersonator BigDon rode 300 miles from the Dallas area early Sat morning just so he could come play in the dirt with us. And I thought getting up at 7:00 on a Sat morning was epic. How silly of me.

2 more riders linked up with us in Blanco. What a motely crew we were.

For the entire weekend we had: 3 KLRs, 2 Transalps, 1 XR650L, 1 of those fancy new fuel injected WR250R, 1 V-Strom, 1 Wee-Strom, and 3 of those beastly boxer GS bikes.

L to R, your starting line-up beyond epic team: Tim, Joel, Donnie, Richard, Anthony, Don, Rick, Arnold, Vinny (Barbarino?), Bob

The morning's objective was to get west as fast as the law allows so we slabbed it all the way to Bandera. I know riding 100 miles of pavement is epic and all, but it was boring too. Come on, we need dirt.

Word of our BEYOND EPIC ride had apparently spread throughout the land. When we arrived in Bandera they were having a parade in our honor. Either that or they were celebrating Labor Day 2 days early. Either way, Main Street was closed down for the parade so no Old Spanish Trail restaurant for us. Luckily, the local Sonic was just outside of the parade route and had plenty of parking.

 

[Chango]

Keep the pics coming.

 

[Trail Boss]

West of Bandera, we finally arrived at the first dirt of the day - Ross road. As an added bonus 20 feet after turning onto the dirt we crossed our first water of the day. There wasn't much water, so it was essentially a warm up for the tougher water crossings to come later in the day.

A couple of pics to warm you up for the tougher pics to follow

Anthony - by the way, Anthony can ride the wheels off his bike. The dude has some serious, no that's not right, he has some EPIC, talent.

Tim - his XR just laughed at this stuff. And the XR's seat laughed at all the pain it inflicted on Tim's backside over 2 full days of riding.

Even the GS bikes like this stuff. Arnold on his GS.

 

[Trail Boss]

We made our way west on a nice, scenic, class 1 dirt road. Here's some random shots.

Donnie and Don

Tim

Joel

Most of the group. Kawasaki did such a nice job on the '08s that they can ride themselves. That red number followed us around all weekend, sans rider.

 

[Trail Boss]

West Sabinal road is a fun, scenic class 1 or class 2 road. (It depends on when you ride it - last time it was a rutted class 2, this time it was in pretty good shape).

Bob on West Sabinal

Time for a break at the end of West Sabinal

 

[Trail Boss]

We rode west on RR 337 (one of the 3 twisted sisters) to Camp Wood. It had been several hours since lunch, so some cool refreshments were in order.

The Get-N-Go in Camp Wood. There were lots of folks gettin' and goin' while we were there.

The cruiser riders - and there were lots of them at the Get-N-Go - didn't know what to make of us. Some ignored us, some couldn't resist coming over to talk to us.

Don and Arnold

Donnie doing his best Brad Pitt fight club impersonation (just kidding). Meteorologist Joel (background) kept us up to date on the weather with that little black object in his hand. Luckily, it was raining far to the west of us, with no sign of rain in the vicinity. We were blessed with a full cloud cover, though, which kept temps moderate all day long.

With our break over, it was time to get serious.

 

[Trail Boss]

The best dual sport roads in Texas - at least, the best dual sport roads in Texas outside of Big Bend - are in the western half of the Texas hill country. As good as the riding here is, you'd think you would see lots of dual sport riders here, but you don't. Outside of TAR I don't think I've ever encountered another dual sport rider when I've been riding in this area. Admittedly, there aren't as many of us as there are street-only riders, but still, it's not a stretch to think this area would regularly draw ds riders from all over.

The western half of the Texas hill country is just too far from any cities (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, etc) for day rides. Even if you are coming from Austin or San Antonio, you pretty much have to make an overnight trip of it if you want to ride these dual sport roads and not end up riding back home in the dark.

I think this partially explains why this dual sport riding area has remained hidden for so long. It is far enough away from most concentrations of ds riders that it has remained in obscurity.

Events like TAR and ride reports like this are slowly getting the word out and eventually the entire Texas dual sport community will know about this gem of a riding area and will be able to take advantage of it.

On the other hand, the western half of the hill country is a very big place and there are lots of great ds roads scattered liberally throughout it. Our ds community is not particularly large so I believe there isn't really any concern of the area getting overcrowded.

Okay, enough with the philosophizing - on with the story.

Anthony & Arnold taking a break

Rick and his TransLap. oops, that's TransAlp (inside joke).

After tanking up on gas and downing a cold beverage, it was time to get to the best dual sport roads of the day. It was early afternoon and my GPS said if we quite fiddling around and stayed on the gas for the next 5+ hours we would arrive in Junction before dark. I knew we would have to ride hard and everything would have to go right for us to run the route I had planned in just 5 hours. Off we went.

In Barksdale we turned west onto Cedar Creek road, a superb class 2 road with an abundance of water crossings. These crossings are natural - no concrete - consisting of rocks of all sizes, from pea gravel to baby head sized boulders. They are a lot of fun to cross so we got lots of pictures.

Anthony

Rick

Arnold

Tim

Bob

Donnie

Joel

Don

 

[Trail Boss]

We rode Cedar Creek road west to the intersection of Cedar Creek and White Mountain road. I didn't get a lot of pictures of the road (too busy having fun) but here's what I got.

It had rained just enough recently to knock down the dust but not get the road too muddy.

I should buy this place and set up a world DS headquarters. Anthony might be thinking the same thing. "Hey Honey, I found this great little cabin back in the boonies I want to buy. Look at this picture of it. It's a bit of a fixer-up special..."

Shooting and riding - not as treacherous as drinking and driving, but the pics don't come out as good.

Like I said, there are lots of water crossings on this road

Tim (XR) and Joel (WR)

At the intersection of Cedar Creek and White Mountain it was time for a break and a group photo. L to R: Richard, Rick, Joel, Donnie, Don, Arnold, Tim, Anthony. The more astute of you have already noticed that we are missing Vinny (he was in the morning group photo). Unfortunately, Vinny had a UT football game to attend so he departed the group back at the upscale Sonic where we had lunch, many dirt miles ago.

So far we've been blessed with no crashes and no mechanical problems. Hope I didn't just jinx us....

 

[Trail Boss]

Beyond EPIC Crashes and Flats

I must have jinxed us 'cause Donnie went down. Washed the front end out on the loose gravel on White Mountain road.

Bob recorded the moment for all generations to come. I recorded Bob recording the moment for all generations to come.

The bike wasn't damaged and neither was Donnie. We dusted him off, put him back on the bike, and off went went. For maybe a mile. Then Donnie went down again. Washed the front end out on the loose gravel. The bike and Donnie still weren't seriously damaged so we picked both of them up, dusted them off again, and continued on our way.

Remember that "ride hard and fast and if everything goes right we will make it to Junction before dark"? We weren't going to make it. We had lost more time than planned what with all all the water crossings and Donnie repeating his traction limit test of his front tire. So, once we reached the end of White Mountain road our dirt foray was over for the day. Instead we slabbed it all 60 or so miles to Junction.

Except for another stop for Donnie. That dude couldn't buy any good luck at all. A spoke broke and punctured his tube.

Make shift center stand

With Rick directing the rescue efforts the tire was quickly off, tube changed, and the group back on the way

2 guys fix the flat, 4 guys stand around watching the 2 guys fix the flat, and 3 guys take pics of the 2 guys and the 4 guys. Sorry for all the math, but try to keep up so if your group has a flat you know what everyone's job is.

Not too hard to guess where the broken bike is in this picture.

Once the flat was fixed, we continued on to Junction, further incident free.

 

[linx310]

And the funny thing is every one was telling me "quick pick the bike up before they take a picture"....but hey i don't care...I will admit I dumped the bike...we are DSers...we are supposed to get dirty...lol

And BTW my bad luck wasnt over btw....hehe

 

[Trail Boss]

And BTW my bad luck wasnt over btw....hehe

Extra beyond epic adventures, eh?

 

[The Bruce]

Great report on a great ride.

 

[bobcat]

Wow. Epic!

 

[Trail Boss]

The first job we had to take care of when we arrived in Junction was supper. It had been 7 hours or so since lunch and all the dirt riding, water crossing, & flat fixing had given us a hearty appetite.

I led the group directly to the Isaak Restaurant. Let's eat before we check into our motel rooms.

Isaak has what you want to eat, whatever that might be.

Steak. (See all the wrappers there on the table? Rick was really hungry and the waitress was taking entirely too long to take care of us, so he raided the salad bar of all the crackers. 40 packs of crackers later his food finally arrived.)

TexMex

Chicken

Popcorn shrimp

Once our beyond epic supper was done and our appetites satiated, off we went to check into our respective rooms. The plan was to meet back up on the grassy knoll next to Isaaks for some epic beer drinking and story telling.

On the way to the motel I spotted Rusty and filled him in on our plans. Rusty and Don had opted to attend the Two Wheeled Texans pie run in Marble Falls earlier in the day and then had headed west to join us in Junction on Sat evening.

Beer on the grassy knoll. Turns out Bob is a Star Wars fanatic and has built his own light saber. He carries it in his boot the way some folks carry a handgun in that same location. It's illegal to carry a concealed light saber, but since the light saber glows through his pants it doesn't violate the concealed lightsaber law.

Donnie bought his gray suit at a garage sale that Universal Studios had a few years back. It was the suit Jeff Bridges wore in the movie Tron back in 1982.

Bob in "full relax" mode.

 

[JUSTRIDE2666]

Hey 08 klr guys i found these rear guards on e-bay item# is 170256002278. seller is losi3030,95$ plus shipping i am going to get a set this week. just thought they might work. WOW wish i would have payed more attention and could have tried my new klr out on this RIDE. EPIC + 10....

 

[Vinny]

Sorry I missed the rest of the ride. Sure was nice finally meeting people that think like me. I did have a great (fast) ride back home thru some great back roads. Even got a little lost and liked it !
The traffic getting to the game and specially out of the game (1hr 20 min from downtown to north Austin) was horrible. They had closed some roads for a running race of some sort. Sure was thinking of you guys having fun out there .
Keep the pictures coming Richard.

 

[Trail Boss]

Hey 08 klr guys i found these rear guards on e-bay item# is 170256002278. seller is losi3030,95$ plus shipping i am going to get a set this week. just thought they might work. WOW wish i would have payed more attention and could have tried my new klr out on this RIDE. EPIC + 10....

That's great. I need a set of those. Thanks for the info.

 

[Trail Boss]

Warning, warning - Graphic warning.

The next pic may shock you.

Don't let your children see it.

Ladies, I'm not responsible for any irrepressible urges to leave your husband/boyfried/significant other and run off with this man...




























It takes a real man to pull off the "shorts w/dirt bike boots and white tube socks" look. Rick, clearly, has no problems making it work. You've got to admit he's got an epic level of gravitas.

 

[Trail Boss]

Our plan was to depart Sun morning at 9 a.m. We gathered once again on the grass knoll for a brief discussion of the what/where/how of the day.

Hackberry road was our first dirt of the day

Rusty on his TransLap

Don #2 on his first dual sport ride (On Sunday we had 2 Dons. BigDon is Don #1)

Donnie

Bob

Arnold

Don #1 - aka BigDon the Ironbutt impersonator

XR Tim went down on this crossing, but I didn't get any photos.

Then he went down on the next crossing. I still didn't get any photos.

At this point I realized I had failed to brief the group on the proper super-slick, algae-covered, epic water crossing technique. Get up a little momentum, pull in your clutch, and try to coast all the way across. Basically the same technique you use in your cage when crossing an ice covered overpass. If you don't have enough momentum to coast all the way across, feather your clutch, providing just enough drive to your rear tire to keep you moving, and then pull the clutch back in.

Once Tim recovered from his second fall and was safely on dry land again, I briefed him up. It must have worked cause he stayed "rubber side down" the rest of the way.

 

[Trail Boss]

Oops, I forgot some stuff.

Here's the beyond epic route I had planned for Day 1.

We mostly followed the route. I modified it slightly on our way to Bandera. And then at the end of the day we skipped one of the dirt roads we had planned due to running out of daylight.

Also, the crashes and flat tire weren't all that happened to Donnie. He had an electrical problem earlier in the day and his headlight stopped working. So, we really, really needed to get to Junction before dark or the adventure might go even further than "beyond epic" - not a place we wanted to go.

 

[ta2240]

XR Tim went down on this crossing, but I didn't get any photos.

Then he went down on the next crossing. I still didn't get any photos.

At this point I realized I had failed to brief the group on the proper super-slick, algae-covered, epic water crossing technique. Get up a little momentum, pull in your clutch, and try to coast all the way across. Basically the same technique you use in your cage when crossing an ice covered overpass. If you don't have enough momentum to coast all the way across, feather your clutch, providing just enough drive to your rear tire to keep you moving, and then pull the clutch back in.

Once Tim recovered from his second fall and was safely on dry land again, I briefed him up. It must have worked cause he stayed "rubber side down" the rest of the way.

Hmm, no photos, must not have happened then!
And if photos turn up, which I am sure they will, it only happened because you guys were throwing rocks at me. And as far as the riding on Ice technique, we don't get ice in Houston and all of the creek crossings here are based with Mud. Who ever heard of putting concrete across a creek anyway.

 

[Trail Boss]

Hmm, no photos, must not have happened then!
And if photos turn up, which I am sure they will, it only happened because you guys were throwing rocks at me. And as far as the riding on Ice technique, we don't get ice in Houston and all of the creek crossings here are based with Mud. Who ever heard of putting concrete across a creek anyway.

That's the epic spirit! Stick to your guns - until photos show up it didn't happen. And if photos show up, claim photoshop chop!