• Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to register so that you can join the community and use the numerous features on the site. After registering, don't forget to post up an introduction!

Am I the only one?

Forums New posts
mr72

mr72

Joined
Apr 23, 2020
Messages
3,667
Reaction score
4,237
Location
Cedar Park, Texas, USA
Often times I feel like living in Texas, especially smack in the middle like I do, is really the wrong place. It's because Texas is just so danged big, you have to go a long way just to see anything else, even if it's just something else in Texas.

In November my wife and I went on a long trip up to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Driving home, day 1 took us from Montana through Wyoming complete and nearly to the New Mexico border of Colorado. Then day two was an hour in New Mexico and eleven more hours just in Texas, and we didn't go all the way across!

Every time I see a ride posted here on TWT and I want to join, it's always at least an hour or more of riding from my house just to get to the starting point. Then I have maybe a 2-4 hour ride, followed by another hour to get home. It's just too much! I have interesting roads to ride right out of my back door, but lots of the more interesting roads in Texas are many hours from here. I'd love to go ride on them, but I really don't want to ride to them.

During our trip to Yellowstone we took some killer back roads through Colorado along the western side of the Rockies. I instantly wanted to be there with my bike. I thought about planning a trip with my dad and some friends to go ride this route. Maybe stay up near Wyoming overnight, ride back another route the next day. But to do that, we'd literally have to trailer the bikes and charge hard for a 13+ hour drive to and from the start/end point. Because Texas.

I'm in Cedar Park, my house just less than a mile from the Austin city limit on the NW side. I'm not really looking for twisty roads to ride fast. I'm mostly looking for beautiful roads to experience. So far, I have done 1431 to and from Marble Falls, including taking side trips off down Trails End, through Lago Vista all the way wherever the roads lead. I run out and loop around Volente Rd and Lime Creek Rd so often, I have worn a path. We often ride out 183 to Briggs, turn up 243 back towards Bertram, hook up with 1174 and take it back to 1431, which is a great ride. Sometimes we cut the corner and do Cow Creek Rd or even do Cow Creek to 1174 and back to 1431, the Smithwick Lollipop. For longer rides I love going out to Lake Buchanan all the way to the Canyon of the Eagles park, then backtrack over to Park Rd. 4 back to 281, to Marble Falls and back on 1431. That's like a 5 hour route. Going East, looping around Granger Lake is fun but that's a lot of suburban highway to get to 30 minutes of nice roads. I have considered running Park Rd. 1 through Buescher and Bastrop State Parks but that's over an hour to get to either end from here, and that's an hour by the fastest route, 70-80mph flat slab highways.

What am I missing here?
 
Last edited:
What are you missing???.... nothing really, that's just life in Texas I think.
Before I moved here I used to laugh at folks who trailered their bikes to go ride somewhere, I don't do that anymore.
It's a minimum 2 hours of hard riding from me to find the kind of roads I like to ride, much longer to find the stuff I love to ride.
Trailering a bike makes perfect sense to me now, so does having a base to do 1-3 day rides from.
 
I'd say you have it pretty good with such proximity to Marble Falls, the hill country and such. Just consider you have 360deg of direction to find roads to ride. Down here by the coast, we are cut off with only about 1/2 as many directions to ride before going into the GoM. Trying to go north or west typically requires cutting across Houston.
And all our nearby coastal roads are flat and straight!
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.....

I get it. Like you said, Texas is big. It takes a full day's ride plus to get to any of the other borders from here. But from the CenTex, every border is a day's ride away.
 
We take trips to Colorado every summer, for camping and visit friends. This year I pulled my BMW on a trailer. We took day trips west of Denver almost every day. we love those rides into the mountains and back.
We live in Dripping Springs, and I enjoy the ranch roads out to Comfort, Fredericksburg, even as far as Bandera.
it is great here in central Texas, a lot worst when we lived in Houston.
 
From where you are, you can enjoy decent riding within an hour from you but are probably 9 hours away from great riding in New Mexico or Arkansas. You can also enjoy riding year round.

I'm in the Dallas area. I'm 4 hours away from decent riding in the Hill Country and only about 5 hours away from great riding in Arkansas so I go north more than south unless it's winter, and then I go south.

I'm currently looking for a summer place in Colorado that would awesome riding all around....but I wouldn't want to live there in the winter.

I guess I'm trying to say that it's just a compromise.

IMO, if you really wanted to live in the best place ever for riding. I'd suggest eastern TN within 200 miles or so of Knoxville. You still get some winter there though...

And you aren't the only one.....
 
Last edited:
I was born in Jonesboro, AR, just a little ways from Memphis. We moved here when I was 11. I'm familiar with all of Arkansas and TN, and I totally agree there's great riding there and the winters are pretty mild. I think if I were to seriously consider moving, TN would be on the list. But with my family and particularly my grandson here, I think we're going to stay. I'm a near lifelong Texan. Hard to break that. And my wife has lived here since she was two weeks old.

I definitely prefer my riding opportunities vs. Dallas. I am just kind of getting bored with the stuff right on my doorstep, and not looking forward to extremely long drives to get to somewhere better. Pulling a trailer full of motorcycles from CenTx to Trinidad, CO would be a pretty awful drive, and you'd have to do it two ways. There are hundreds of miles of hilly, twisty, rough, 70mph high desert highways past Amarillo getting up to CO. That would be torture pulling a trailer.
 
mr72 said:
I definitely prefer my riding opportunities vs. Dallas. I am just kind of getting bored with the stuff right on my doorstep, and not looking forward to extremely long drives to get to somewhere better. Pulling a trailer full of motorcycles from CenTx to Trinidad, CO would be a pretty awful drive, and you'd have to do it two ways. There are hundreds of miles of hilly, twisty, rough, 70mph high desert highways past Amarillo getting up to CO. That would be torture pulling a trailer.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I've done it many times. Get a decent truck and trailer and it's not bad. Set cruise at 75 and it goes pretty quickly. Under powered truck and a small trailer would suck.

For me, it's worth it as long as you stay at least a week.
 
2WheelNut said:
Yeah. I've done it many times. Get a decent truck and trailer and it's not bad. Set cruise at 75 and it goes pretty quickly. Under powered truck and a small trailer would suck.

For me, it's worth it as long as you stay at least a week.
Click to expand...

Only way I would even try it would be if I rented something like a Suburban and rented a trailer to go with it. I could probably do it with my wife's Expedition in a pinch. But I would be horrible at pulling a trailer. Just the Expo by itself feels enormous for me to drive. Too many years in sports cars.

Now, those roads at 75 cruise control? I can't imagine that. I had a heck of a time keeping my Wrangler Unlimited between the lines given the rough roads, cross winds, and curves, consistently over 65. And that's with no trailer.
 
mr72 said:
Only way I would even try it would be if I rented something like a Suburban and rented a trailer to go with it. I could probably do it with my wife's Expedition in a pinch. But I would be horrible at pulling a trailer. Just the Expo by itself feels enormous for me to drive. Too many years in sports cars.

Now, those roads at 75 cruise control? I can't imagine that. I had a heck of a time keeping my Wrangler Unlimited between the lines given the rough roads, cross winds, and curves, consistently over 65. And that's with no trailer.
Click to expand...
Yep. Tow rig is everything. With a 3/4 ton diesel and a decent dual axle trailer with brakes. You can't even feel the trailer back there.

I'd rather tow 1000 miles with a decent setup than 50 miles with something not really made for the task.

Anyway.. getting a bit off topic. Trailering will always be a worse option than already being there.
 
Last edited:
Sounds like I'm just not really missing out on much on my back door.

There are abundant going-nowhere Williamson/Burnet/Travis County roads with next to nothing to look at, gobs of patched holes and otherwise uninspiring riding conditions, so much so that most of the time my dad and I just avoid trying them. There are some surprisingly more enjoyable roads than what I put here, which we found sort of by accident, but not very many really. My dad likes the Round Mountain route that includes 2243 and cuts over to Liberty Hill and then we cross back on CR 272 into Leander. But most of these kind of roads have nothing to see but cow pies and ruins of barns from the civil war era. I really do enjoy riding through the middle of some of these small towns, including the likes of Georgetown or Salado or even Florence or Lampasas, but it's hard to tell just looking at a map which little town is worth the trip vs. which ones don't even have a city limit sign.

Anyway, if anyone has more suggestions of where to go that would be a 2 hr round trip or less from Cedar Park, I'm all ears. Otherwise, thanks for the commiserating.
 
I used to ride to Colorado, North Carolina, Arkansas and others. It took 2 days of hard riding to get to Durango or Ashville. Now, I get with buddies and drive overnight. Last year, randypowers, Trevor and I left their house in San Antonio at around noon on Friday. The next morning, we had to wait on a restaurant to open at 6:00AM in Moab, Utah so we could eat before going riding. Take friends, leave Friday after work, take turns driving overnight, ride 8 days, drive home starting early the following Sunday morning and sleep in your own bed Sunday night. All using one week of vacation. My solution doesn't work for weekend rides, but I live in Bryan, about 2 to 3 hours from good riding, and find it difficult to feel sorry for you living so close to the hill country.:mrgreen::rider::mrgreen:
 
Last edited:
I camped at the city park in Maybell Colorado for several years , two to three weeks each time , I would easily put a thousand miles each on my dirt bike and street bike all awsome miles riding into Utah and Wyoming , I could ride out of the camp ground to Wyoming without hitting pavemant and with very few miles of pavement to get to Utah , Moffett county Colorado is 90 miles across and from 60 miles tall on the west end to around 40 miles tall on the east end . I rode a few thousand miles of it and left a lot undiscovered . There are 6 paved highways in the county not counting both city’s and a couple small towns with nothing paved except the highway thru town . Now I go to Wyoming , first year for two weeks , next six weeks and 3 months in 2020 and rode something every day , 600 miles on my bicycle and a thousand on my dirt bike with several rides up on top the BigHorn mountians . This year I may be gone all summer and well into the fall . Don’t ride much in Texas anymore .

04B7AEAF-7D1F-4A7C-9882-26A6333ACD53.jpeg


One of the sweet spots in Colorado about 30 miles from my campsite with maybe 5 miles of pavement . That little trickle of water way down there is the yampa river .
 
Last edited:
When I head out I leave early and am in New Mexico or Colorado before dark , no sense in wasting time getting to the good stuff . I save all my energy for good riding .
 
Cagiva 549 said:
I camped at the city park in Maybell Colorado for several years , two to three weeks each time , I would easily put a thousand miles each on my dirt bike and street bike all awsome miles riding into Utah and Wyoming , I could ride out of the camp ground to Wyoming without hitting pavemant and with very few miles of pavement to get to Utah , Moffett county Colorado is 90 miles across and from 60 miles tall on the west end to around 40 miles tall on the east end . I rode a few thousand miles of it and left a lot undiscovered . There are 6 paved highways in the county not counting both city’s and a couple small towns with nothing paved except the highway thru town . Now I go to Wyoming , first year for two weeks , next six weeks and 3 months in 2020 and rode something every day , 600 miles on my bicycle and a thousand on my dirt bike with several rides up on top the BigHorn mountians . This year I may be gone all summer and well into the fall . Don’t ride much in Texas anymore .



One of the sweet spots in Colorado about 30 miles from my campsite with maybe 5 miles of pavement . That little trickle of water way down there is the yampa river .
Click to expand...
and the Maybell park was free camping the last time I was there.
 
That's really cool stuff right there. Mind you, I'm not after off-road riding. Just interesting places to see and interesting roads to get there.
 
mr72 said:
That's really cool stuff right there. Mind you, I'm not after off-road riding. Just interesting places to see and interesting roads to get there.
Click to expand...

You are not after off-road riding... yet... :nana:
 
For the love of family, I'm here again. Born and raised in NTX. Otherwise, I'd be back in NC where I was for 10 years, in a heartbeat. It's the whole package, city vs country, too.
 
Here in the Phoenix area it's pretty much the same. If you want off-road that's pretty close, but if you want cooler temps and/or good roads to ride it's about an hour to get to the start of them and more like two hours to get to the better stuff.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top