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Ride Review for East Texas 450 – Nov 6 and 7, 2021

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I didn't commit to doing the complete ride this time, but had to do some of it. The DR650 needs some repairs so I brought Lillie (R1200GS).
Matt, Xavier, and Fuji accepted me in their group.
I did the first 90 miles with them including "the road" and made it through with much help. Thank you!
I bugged out to see my brother & sister in-law who was camping at mill creek. Then we ate at Fish Tails in Jasper and back to Beaumont.

They had a long way to go when I left.

I look forward to doing the complete ride again on a smaller bike. The GS did great but went down a few times at walking speed in some of the mud. Much help was needed in lifting her and pushing back on straight direction.

Great riding with y'all. Hope the rest of the day went great.
 

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Not nearly as bad as my previous experiences with it. But still a challenge for the me and the GS.
 
Other roads were still muddy too. Hard bottom with 4" or so of mud on top, Just slick. The KLR in our group had mud build up on front to the point it would stop turning and it had to be cleaned. And some of the sand on near Rockland was sloppy, which may be better than dry...but.
 
Well, my bike began smoking before Hemphill on Saturday. We stopped for lunch at Dairy Queen. Consensus was it might be a bad ring or piston issue.


Fortunatly, a nice couple (my parents) with property in the area had joined us for lunch. So, they put me to work Saturday afternoon for transportation back to Houston on Sunday.


Moral of the story, if you got to breakdown, do it near family. 😁


I hope everyone else had a good ride.
 

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Hi guys! We were not part of the TWTEX group but completed the ET450 on the same weekend using your routes- two of us, a KTM690 and GS1200. Rusk to Jasper, then Jasper to Rusk. Back to DFW tomorrow. Saw evidence of your knobbies on the muddy parts. What a great ride - fun and challenging! Didn’t do “the road” as signs were up that it was closed. Not sure we missed much as there was plenty of mud elsewhere. Cheers!
 
Joel and Danny talking about .... something
 

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Some roadside repairs
 

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I had a fantastic time.
Many thanks to Pat for organizing, Joel for leading and Casper for leading.
Joel bought everyone and I mean everyone dinner at the Mexican restaurant. Thanks Joel that was real nice.
Some pics and then I will get on my soap box about how to avoid flat tires. Stay tuned.
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All in all I think this ride was just awesome. For me it was just about the perfect ride. Wednesdays rain meant there was really very little dust, yes we had some mud in many places but it was all doable. I mentioned to Joel that he should change his TWT handle to " DeerSlapper" I swear this guy is a deer magnet. I have personally seen him have THREE very close calls, two today. Sorry to hear Pat's 530 started having problems after he and it took a dip in a deep hole. It took the three of us to get it out. Like last time we did this 450 the second day was the best. The freshly graded red sand roads were just flat out fun to play with a bit of drifting in the corners. And come to think of it now, after three times of doing this ride I can finally say I did every bit of it. Thanks to Pat for putting it together and thanks to Joel for leading the way.
 
Now for the soap box talk.
What we learned from Casper's flat.
Install RIDE ON in front and back tires, tube or tubeless.
Use HEAVY DUTY TUBES.
Air up the tube before you install it to make sure it also does not have a leak.

Casper's tube had a microscopic pin prick hole right in the middle of the tread area.
But we could not find anything sticking thru the tire. Three of us ran our hands around
the inside and also looked inside the tire. We have no idea what caused it
however there is no doubt in my mind that if RIDE ON was in the tube to begin with
it would have not gone flat.
Then we did not inflate the replacement tube prior to installing it and once installed
it leaked. So I pulled out my HEAVY DUTY TUBE and Casper installed it and it held.
It also is harder to pinch a HEAVY DUTY TUBE with tire irons when installing it.
Moral of the story install RIDE ON in your tires and when replacing tubes use
HEAVY DUTY TUBES. I am not starting a war thread on this tube versus that tube
just some soap box ramblings.
NOW FOR THE PHOTOS.
 
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Perhaps what caused the second flat was a sharp little pebble as we were changing the tube on the ground.
So a trash bag I had in my soft case came in handy to put the tire
on top of to help keep debri out of the tire when changing tubes.
 
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