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Around the Bend & Lone Star Reunion Feb 28 - Mar 3, 2019

I'll be leading a small group on Old Maverick and River Road Friday, with some optional routes at the end of the day. Feel free to join us.
This will be my first time to Big Bend, also first time offroad with my well used, but new to me 2005 DRZ-400S. I signed up for the Newbie offroad ride for Friday, but haven't heard any details about it yet.
Gourdhead - your quote above says you are leading a "small group" on Friday. Is this the Newbie ride?
 
As I stated in post above - this will be my first time to BB.
I am trailering a dual sport and road bike from Austin - coming alone. Just picked up the DRZ so I have not had any opportunity to do any offroad training or practice other than a little dirt road near my house.
I will be arriving on Tuesday afternoon; staying at the BB Resort Motor Inn.
I plan to do some hiking on Wednesday; will be researching to try to see what would be the best choices.
Thursday may be more hiking or some road riding / sight seeing.
Looking forward to my first real experiences offroad and chance to learn from this great community. I plan to be very careful and take it slow while learning technique and getting used to the bike.
Hope to hook up with a group for road riding on Saturday as well.

Also looking forward to meeting some of you and making some friends.

I will reach out to the folks that have stated they will be in town on Tuesday and Wednesday; maybe we can hook up for some hiking, etc.
If anyone else is coming in early or is on their own, new to the forum/group and would like to hang out, please DM me.

Here is a pic of the '05 DRZ:
228203
 
As I stated in post above - this will be my first time to BB.
I am trailering a dual sport and road bike from Austin - coming alone. Just picked up the DRZ so I have not had any opportunity to do any offroad training or practice other than a little dirt road near my house.
I will be arriving on Tuesday afternoon; staying at the BB Resort Motor Inn.
I plan to do some hiking on Wednesday; will be researching to try to see what would be the best choices.
Thursday may be more hiking or some road riding / sight seeing.
Looking forward to my first real experiences offroad and chance to learn from this great community. I plan to be very careful and take it slow while learning technique and getting used to the bike.
Hope to hook up with a group for road riding on Saturday as well.

Also looking forward to meeting some of you and making some friends.

I will reach out to the folks that have stated they will be in town on Tuesday and Wednesday; maybe we can hook up for some hiking, etc.
If anyone else is coming in early or is on their own, new to the forum/group and would like to hang out, please DM me.

Here is a pic of the '05 DRZ:
View attachment 228203
I'll be arriving on Wednesday afternoon. I'll be camping over at the Study Butte RV Park. I'll be on a silver 2004 BMW R1150GS Adv. I plan on riding the Pinto Canyon Rd one of the days out there. I'm gonna be in the area for 2 weeks.
 
For those attending the Lone Star BMW/Triumph Reunion Friday night and wondering where it will be, here is a map showing the location of Robert’s house.

228279


228280


The coordinates are N29.39661 W103.51966 for the house, and
N29.39934 W103.51297 for the turn off from Hwy 118.
The Reunion will be from 5:30-8 Friday night.
 
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Richard told me yesterday that we currently have 43 riders interested in running the Newbie ride on Friday. We did not expect quite that much interest. We will need to split up into groups of no more than 6-8 riders. Anyone interested in volunteering to lead a group please post up or PM me. I am putting together a track for a loop NNW of The Starlight up to the Top of the World lookout. I’ll post the track when its ready.
 
Richard told me yesterday that we currently have 43 riders interested in running the Newbie ride on Friday. We did not expect quite that much interest. We will need to split up into groups of no more than 6-8 riders. Anyone interested in volunteering to lead a group please post up or PM me. I am putting together a track for a loop NNW of The Starlight up to the Top of the World lookout. I’ll post the track when its ready.

In to lead (or follow)
 
I can take 3-4 in my group, if anyone is interested. As said above, Study Butte-Old Maverick-Santa Elena Canyon-Castalon-River Road-Rio Grande Village. Back from that end of the park on asphalt, with some possible side trips down Black Gap, Glen Springs, and the hot springs. You will need a range of 83.5 miles, which shouldn't be an issue for most dual sports on stock tanks. https://goo.gl/maps/VGRxXfGJ5r62 Find me at the El Dorado during registration, I'll be the guy with a shaved head smoking a cigar. Or just ask JT or Richard :)



Michael Barnes
512-517-08 three three
 
I plan to do some hiking on Wednesday; will be researching to try to see what would be the best choices.
Thursday may be more hiking or some road riding / sight seeing.

We did the Window Trail out of Chisos Basin year before last. It was a great hike with a cool destination at the end. Next time I definitely wouldn't do it in MX boots in 100 degree weather again but I'd do in the right gear for sure.
 
I can take 3-4 in my group, if anyone is interested. As said above, Study Butte-Old Maverick-Santa Elena Canyon-Castalon-River Road-Rio Grande Village. Back from that end of the park on asphalt, with some possible side trips down Black Gap, Glen Springs, and the hot springs. You will need a range of 83.5 miles, which shouldn't be an issue for most dual sports on stock tanks. https://goo.gl/maps/VGRxXfGJ5r62 Find me at the El Dorado during registration, I'll be the guy with a shaved head smoking a cigar. Or just ask JT or Richard :)



Michael Barnes
512-517-08 three three

Mike, That sounds like a fun route. Count me in and thanks.

Jimmy S.
 
Richard told me yesterday that we currently have 43 riders interested in running the Newbie ride on Friday. We did not expect quite that much interest. We will need to split up into groups of no more than 6-8 riders. Anyone interested in volunteering to lead a group please post up or PM me. I am putting together a track for a loop NNW of The Starlight up to the Top of the World lookout. I’ll post the track when its ready.

In to help, lead, whatever.
 
Hey All
I’ll be riding the AT out from Austin. Leaving mid morning on Wednesday and passing through Sisterdale, Leaky and Campwood, will camp at Seminole canyon Wednesday night. Likely hike in the morning before continuing to BB/El Dorado. Id like to do Pinto Canyon on Friday; south to North and then Casa Piedra back to river road.



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Thank you Charles and Ken.
 
Hey All
I’ll be riding the AT out from Austin. Leaving mid morning on Wednesday and passing through Sisterdale, Leaky and Campwood, will camp at Seminole canyon Wednesday night. Likely hike in the morning before continuing to BB/El Dorado. Id like to do Pinto Canyon on Friday; south to North and then Casa Piedra back to river road.



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Gina and I have camped at Seminole Canyon twice, great little park. Take the guided tour to the rock art if you can.
 
What is the distance to the next available gas, if I take RR to Boquillas?

River Road pops out onto the highway 4.7 miles from the pump in RGV and 1.2 miles from the hot springs road entrance. Boquillas is 5.4 miles from the end of River Road, all asphalt. And 1.8 miles from the pump. So basically the end of river road, to the hot springs, to the entrance to old ore road, to the gas station, and Boquillas is less than 10 miles of riding. Reasons why I ran the little dos y dos day trip out of rgv. Ernst Tinaja (pools and canyon) is only 4 miles up old ore and the Mariscal mine is 20 miles down river road with a black gap loop possible.
 

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Correction, if you do the most common route to rgv...study butte>old maverick>santa elena canyon>river road> mariscal mine>rgv its 85 miles gas to gas.
 

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Correction, if you do the most common route to rgv...study butte>old maverick>santa elena canyon>river road> mariscal mine>rgv its 85 miles gas to gas.
Peter, can you provide the gps track(s) for that ride? I have some of them but yours looks complete.
 
I don't own a gps, haha. I use google offline maps.


I have an inReach Explore, I use it for SOS and backup GPS. But use Pocket Earth App on my iPhone for GPS. The app is cheap and definitely worth it. I’ve used the app for years now and use it ever time I ride with service or offline.


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I have an inReach Explore, I use it for SOS and backup GPS. But use Pocket Earth App on my iPhone for GPS.

Unfortunately Pocket Earth doesn't have an Android version yet.

Also, are the phone screens bright enough to be seen in bright sunlight? And are there still overheating issues like there were when I tried this in the past?

Peter, even on Google maps don't you have a track you save and/or can share? I believe those can be converted to gpx files with the gpsvisualizer online tool. I'm more curious than anything. I already have some tracks but they're random and I know you've done this gig a bunch of times.
 
Here is the track from the 2014 Desert Challenge Run. This track follows Maverick Rd, River Rd, Black Gap, Glen Springs, RR Rd, to Rio Grande Village. From RGV it goes up Old Ore then across Old Marathon Rd, into Terlingua Ranch and down North County to Hen Egg, Hermans Peak, Salt Grass and South County Rd. I added the short cut that runs straight across River Road instead of running up Black Gap and down Glen Springs.
The Garmin City Navigator maps of the park are very accurate and complete. If your gps shows you off a road on the City Navigator map either you have detail set too low or you are trespassing.

GPX viewer

edit:
I forgot tha while the GPX viewer is a very neat tool, it is limited. It wil not display all tracks in a file. It will only display the first track listed in a file. I do not have time to split this file into the three separate files, view it on your computer in Basecamp or gpsvisualizer.com
 

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Here is the track for the Friday Newbie ride.

GPX viewer
 

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Here is the track from the 2014 Desert Challenge Run. This track follows Maverick Rd, River Rd, Black Gap, Glen Springs, RR Rd, to Rio Grande Village. From RGV it goes up Old Ore then across Old Marathon Rd, into Terlingua Ranch and down North County to Hen Egg, Hermans Peak, Salt Grass and South County Rd. I added the short cut that runs straight across River Road instead of running up Black Gap and down Glen Springs.
The Garmin City Navigator maps of the park are very accurate and complete. If your gps shows you off a road on the City Navigator map either you have detail set too low or you are trespassing.

GPX viewer

edit:
I forgot tha while the GPX viewer is a very neat tool, it is limited. It wil not display all tracks in a file. It will only display the first track listed in a file. I do not have time to split this file into the three separate files, view it on your computer in Basecamp or gpsvisualizer.com

Awesome! I'll get it loaded.

Do you think this would be a pretty good day ride? Or is it too long or too short?

Thanks JT
 
I'd be down for taking a stab at that on Saturday.
 
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