2013 Texas Adventure Ride & Challenge report and photos

Riders,

Post your 2013 Texas Adventure Ride and Texas Adventure Challenge stories and photos here.

Jon Smiley at Sandy Creek, day 1, TAC



Tricepilot Bob on his new KTM 500



You don't need a KTM. A Suzuki DRZ400 works just fine.

mmm.....nice pics!! cant wait for more!

Looks like a good amount of water in Sandy Creek. I sure wish I'd been able to make it out this year. Eager to see all the photos and hear the stories that I missed...

Saturday Morning Kimble Co. Road 372

TimberCat on the Triumph Tiger 800XC and HawkMan on the DR-Z400s


Ray on the DR650


Bill on the KLR650 with the Dakar style low fender


MudClod on the DR-Z400 concept bike


London, Texas, home of the famous London Hall - "Bob Wills is playing the old London hall the whole town was out in there best"






James River crossing lite










James River crossing, Bill and MudClod make it look easy. Wish I had gotten a picture of the heavily armed black Crown Vic and Suburban with blacked out windows that crossed also.






Banquet parking, MossRider with his trusty and not very dusty XRL. He rode up Saturday afternoon for the banquet.






Best Western 730a Sunday




Hackberry Road, Sunday on the way home.




Camp Eagle


Last stop in Leakey




More videos here: www.youtube.com/user/avantmotorcycles?view_as=public

It looks like a large time was had by all!

Kyle (deco) and I waiting in Castell for the TAC riders to come by. I think I got pictures of all of them. I'm just going to link to the gallery because there are a lot of them.

http://woodbutcher.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/TAC-2013/28916042_W8tRfv

If any of you in those pictures want the full sized image, PM me with a regular email address and which picture and I'll email it to you.

Thursday's ride to Junction

Jon Smiley, Milton Otto, and I rode from Austin to Junction on Thursday. The plan was for Milton to be at my house at 8:20 am so we could ride together to meet Jon at 9 am. Milton ran into a few challenges and missed the 8:20am meet up time by a few minutes.





No big deal. I called Jon and let him know our new link-up time and off we went.

Jon rode his KTM 525 with his newly installed Acerbis 6 gallon tank. That thing is HUGE.




Usually we bring a KLR rider along just in case we need extra gas. There was no need for that this time - Jon was the super tanker for our group.

Milton was riding his DRZ400s, loaded down with all the stuff he usually carries.


This was the maiden voyage of my new-to-me Green DRZ. It is officially a Kawasaki KLX400, which is a re-badged DRZ400s sold by Kawasaki under a marketing agreement between Kawasaki and Suzuki. The only difference between the KLX400 and a DRZ400 is the color - the Kawasaki is green, hence the reason it's called the Green DRZ.


We enjoyed a spirited ride to Junction. After dispatching the paved parts of the route, we finally reach some fun dirt west of Enchanted Rock.


Things were going great until Milton went down on a concrete low water crossing. Most crossings had water this year since we've had rain in the past 2 weeks. So, of course, the algae was back, making these crossings treacherous. Luckily both the bike and Milton were okay.



Jon is a very skilled rider and attacks the water crossings with gusto, making for some dramatic photos.



Once in Junction I helped Connie set up for rider check-in at the hotel. She very cleverly had packets pre-prepared for each registered rider, making check-in much smoother and faster this year.




Dave Bell gratiously agreed to give a presentation this year on the logistics of riding the Continental Divide. After his motivational talk I'm all fired up to ride it.



I was happy that Dave with Butler Maps was able to set up a booth for the weekend. Their Hill Country map is excellent and proved very useful for the challenge riders. I hightly recommend it.


Most riders arrived on Thursday evening and there was a lot of visiting, story telling, beer drinking, and ride planning going on throughout the evening. This part of the rally is almost as fun as the actual riding. It's great to see old friends and make new ones.






Jack being Jack. He might be half-crazy but we love him anyway.


After that it was off to bed for my beauty sleep.

Here are some shots of the TAC riders at the Castell crossing on Friday.

Sorry, having problems posting images; but here is a link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/112560650500729780126/TARTAC2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCM-PuZ6DiY-3Kw

Thanks to everyone for a great weekend.

I'm ready to do it again.

Challenge, Day 1

Jon, Milton, Bob, and I teamed up for the challenge course. Out on the course we ran into Ki, who was riding by himself on a KDX220 two-stroke. Yes, his plan was to ride the entire challenge course on his 2 stroke.


Note the 2nd set of "saddle bags" is actually two 1-gallon gas cans. His gas tank wasn't large enoough to handle the distances between gas stops so he carried an extra 2 gallons of gas with his custom "gas can saddle bags".


There was water in Sandy Creek.


This big fellow was standing under the only shade tree in his pasture. Luckily he wasn't disturbed when we stopped at this intersection to regroup - I'm sure that fence would not have been much of an obstacle to him if he had decided he didn't like us.


In Llano, Marcus, riding his green KLR, joined our group.



The course passed right by Luckenbach, so we had to stop for a cold drink and a photo or two.

Jon and Me


I couldn't resist a ride on a longhorn.



The cut-off time for the challenge was 6pm. We arrived at the hotel in Kerrville at 5:45 pm - plenty of time to spare - one of the last groups to arrive. To be fair, we aren't really all that slow - we just had a few missteps out on the course, including losing Jon for several hours (totally my fault). But, we persevered and made it to Kerrville on time.

Story telling in the the hotel parking lot after the day's ride.


Connie spent 2 days hauling luggage for the challenge riders. In between, she kept up with things on facebook with her iphone.


For day 1 we rode about 250 miles over a 10 hour period, with about half of the day riding dirt. Day 2 would be more of the same.

Anyone know the name of the wed site of the guy taking pictures out on 16?

Iceman Jack said:

Anyone know the name of the wed site of the guy taking pictures out on 16?

Click to expand...

It may be this one http://www.txmotofoto.com/ Jack!

Hey! Is that you Jack?

http://www.jwimaging.exposuremanage...ts_bikes__sport_touring/4-13-2013_996_27_10_2

I got to ride one day and tagged along with Sander and his great group of riders. With lunch in Mason at the Willow and an afternoon dip in the James our loop was exactly 200 pleasure packed miles. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFdewKpwVlk"]Two Wheeled Texans in Junction - YouTube[/ame]


Deco
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lXBKvzM0Lg"]Deco at the TAR - YouTube[/ame]

This was such a great weekend of riding and an even better weekend of meeting like minded riders who love this segment of motorcycling.

Early in the ride, I dropped a chain crossing the James River. I had lost my group and was sitting there alone, not knowing how I was going to get out of this predicament. I usually carry an extra master link but, of course, when I really needed one, I didn't have one. The next group of riders who came along stopped. Then to more riders came by and one of them had a master link. Those who stopped all worked to install the link and got me on my way. I rode with some of them into Llano where I was able to hook up with my original group.

I can't express enough gratitude for getting me going again and want to thank all who helped me in this endeavor. It was a small repair that made a huge difference. And, this is why I love adventure riders! They're always there to help.

Smiley said:

Early in the ride, I dropped a chain crossing the James River. I had lost my group and was sitting there alone, not knowing how I was going to get out of this predicament. I usually carry an extra master link but, of course, when I really needed one, I didn't have one.

Click to expand...

I recently added a master link to my stuff. I keep saying do I really need this? I guess I will keep it.

I agree about someone always there to help. Good folks around here.

bwdmax said:

I recently added a master link to my stuff. I keep saying do I really need this? I guess I will keep it.

I agree about someone always there to help. Good folks around here.

Click to expand...

I have one in my pack now and will always carry it. Yes, there are good people everywhere. Sometimes it takes bad things to make us realize that.

By Trail Boss

"Usually we bring a KLR rider along just in case we need extra gas. There was no need for that this time - Jon was the super tanker for our group."

That's not the first time I've been told I have a lot of gas!

The area around London and Yates is incredible and we passed numerous others on practically every road we went down. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esHv3KiUptI"]TAR Junction Texas - YouTube[/ame]


Ray on his DR 650 and Bill on his Screamin' Eagle Kawasaki.

Thanks for the nice pictures and Video Mud!

Thanks, I was sure hoping to ride with another white DRZ!

After lunch we hit Art, Hedwigs Hill, and Hilda on the way to the James. The flora and fauna was stunning. We caught a great weekend to ride.




[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NwAjpbpIPA"]Lower Willow Creek - YouTube[/ame]




[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYZJTNr1M5g"]Commanche Creek - YouTube[/ame]





[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyunsL_kgyY"]James River TAR - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCiPmL8MOa8"]James River Crossing Take One - YouTube[/ame]

Challenge, Day 2

Saturday morning dawned cool and cloudy. The weatherman said it was going to clear up and be a beautiful day.

Riders were up early and preparing for the day's ride.







After a quick 8am rider's meeting my group rolled out of the parking lot, headed south on Hwy 16. I zipped ahead of my group in order to get some photos of them as they went by.

Jon


Bob


After a spirited blitz from Kerrville to Medina, it was time for the first dirt of the day. For the next 9 hours we alternated between dirt and pavement as we rode our way in a southern semi-circle from Kerrville to Junction.

Luckily there was water in most of the water crossings, keeping things fun and interesting. Of course, we had to play a little.













Using the high speed drive on my camera I got this sequence of Jon at one of the crossing.

Can you tell we were having fun?

I also managed to get an action shot or three on 337, one of the famed 3 Twisted Sisters.

Marcus



Bob



Bullhead Road was in particularly fine form this year.









We ran into Rusty's group on Cedar Creek Road so I took advantage of the situation to shoot some pictures of his group as they were on one of the low water crossings.






The old shack on Cedar Creek gets worse each year. The first time I came upon this cabin I didn't hesitate to go inside for a look. Today, I wouldn't do so for fear it would fall on me. If you want a picture of your bike with the shack, do it now. I think in a very short time it will collapse all together.


Another group enjoying the challenge.


My group arrived back in Junction about 5 pm - lots of time to spare before the 7pm cut-off time.

Here is the link to all the photos I took. Riders, please download or share any that you want - that's why I took them.