The weather is crazy - I actually dressed too warmly today after early morning temps in the low 40s most of the week.
The invite & prep for this event is found
here - LD Daves's 6th annual BBQ Ride to Eat (RTE).
Met with 3 other guys at the Minyard in southwest Arlington.
Rich (Simmons1) opted for the ZX-11 today so he could get home faster...
Russ (nogutsnoglory) and his Goldwing
Brad (jbh) but the flash lit up his visor
The bikes
You can see that it was overcast - it was like that most of the day. Occasionally the sun came out...
Everyone blindly followed me until Brad got totally fed up and blasted into the lead on FM933 on the way to Whitney.
Being the social being that I am, I apparently waved to a stopped rider in a shopping center in Whitney. A little while later I noticed an extra headlight in the mirror. Turns out Janet (Janet) had set up an intercept and joined our group.
We made a gas/rest stop at Valley Mills. Now there are 5 bikes:
Heeeeeere's Janet (Janet) on her Road Star
Brad continued to lead and made some clever modifications to the route in Moody and again skirting Temple.
He blamed the GPS.
Rich's comment to me at a stop was "You need to put your **** waypoints on the road!"
However, except for a headwind, nothing kept us from getting to the BBQ place just before 11:00. Brad did find an interesting back way into the parking lot...
There were a bunch of bikes there already and a lot of the riders were inside eating. More kept pulling in. Folks were in the parking lot, talking, looking at bikes. When they got hungry, they ate.
I spotted a few familiar faces - Janet talks with Ana (anaconda)
Ana had been fighting a cold/flu but couldn't pass up a ride for BBQ!
Folks had tastes for three main types of bikes - Honda STs, Honda Goldwings, and Suzuki V-Stroms (both 650s and 1000s). There were others in onseys-twoseys - Triumph, BMW, Yamaha, etc.
Folks were enjoying the weather & looking and talking about bikes.
Dave (lddave - black shirt, second from left) was meeting folks
The back of Dave's shirt (I want one of these but I need to meet Ardys first)
Another familar face - Claire (bobcat) - from just down the road in Austin
Advertising for TWT were Linda and Mike
But the talk of the town was the custom Texas
license plates on these two bikes (OK, the are really Switzerland and Germany)!
They belonged to this couple - Andrea on the left, Thomas on the right. Graeme (Calgary Yogi - middle) was talking with them. We got all the Europeans in one place. A & T had been touring the States since July and were headed to Big Bend next. I got sketchy details on how they heard about the BBQ ride, but it was great that they made it!
They update a diary (blog) online that is currently just in German here:
http://www.miles-to-ride.de/
There is a link to the blog at the bottom of the page. Eventually, they will have a version in English (yes, they speak it well!) here:
http://www.miles-to-ride.com/ Watch for it! I gave them a TWT card and an "Everywhere Texas" DVD to remember Texas by.
More folks - that's Ken (KenH) on the left
That's Rita and Dwayne (DwayneInfo) in the middle
Some other bikes (Triumph, for instance)
I don't think I have ever seen as many ST1100s in one place.
(I forgot to write down who this was but I really should know
)
Bikes had interesting slogans, labels, and stickers, not to mention accessories!
The last two were from LD Dave's bike, also an ST1100.
Another familiar face (late, of course!), Rebecca (Squeaky):
Here's Jim (Langly), ready to go.
Oh! Yeah! There was food, too!
And it was good! Sliced beef sammich was very good.
Here is Rebecca and Janet at the table:
At lot of the riders left to go to the open house at Lone Star BMW in Austin.
We had a couple from our group of 5 that needed to make it home for other parties and activities, so we got some gas and took off north. Brad blamed the GPS again when 290 split off 95 at Temple.
But he suggested staying on the "loop" and taking I35 home. That's what we did - quite a change in traffic levels from the morning...
Janet and Russ split off on I35E and Rich, Brad, and I took I35W. When I exited US287 in Arlington, I noticed a marked drop in temperature.
But it was a great day and I enjoyed it immensely!
Thanks, Dave!