Day 2 of the trip (Day 1 of riding glorious Arkansas roads) began waiting on the night clerk at the hotel to open the lobby and get some coffee brewing. El_Chamiso had offered me some coffee he was brewing on his camp stove, but I foolishly declined.
The night clerk finally staggered in right at 7 and got breakfast on. I use “breakfast” in the most generous of terms, as it consisted of cereal, milk, coffee, bananas, and vending machine pastries. Better than nothing, but a bit less than I was expecting. I had some raisin bran, coffee, and a banana and called it good.
After spending a few minutes checking and topping off tires, and making sure everyone else was covered on those fronts as well, we started to form up into groups. Everyone was in the parking lot and ready to roll about 30 minutes early, so we decided to go ahead and get started. The only ones we were missing was SpiritAtBay and JT. I tracked them down in the front parking lot just as they were starting to get their bikes unloaded. They had a very late arrival the night before. Gina assured me that it was ok for us to go on ahead. She and JT were going to take it easy that morning and go do their own exploring.
We also spent a few minutes going over the navigation files. Apparently I seriously jacked up the files for day one. My app seemingly loaded the file ok, but I would find out later that it really didn’t work at all. It was trying to send me all over creation and back. Muergano was using a Garmin and it wouldn’t load it at all. He and I went over the electronic maps and he copied the route as best as he could to paper maps and called it good. He was leading the first group, and at least this gave him the bones of a route to follow for the day.
I was leading group 2 and thought I had things under control with my nav app (CoPilot), but that was not to be. Luckily Devientartist seemed to have things pretty well under control in the nav department so I eventually -and gladly- invited him to take the lead. Thank you for leading Nate, you did a great job!
With that little snafu out of the way we had the green light to get things rolling. Here’s the crappy part: I took exactly 0 pictures of the groups before we rolled out. I know, I suck. I know there are a couple shots of day 2 starting out, not sure if anyone got a shot of day 1. Anyway, we split into our groups, and the first (fast) group headed out. With about 10 minutes space between us, group 2 set out and headed east. Group 3 was in there somewhere, but I didn’t notice if they snuck out ahead of us, or after.
We needed to cover a few miles on 62 before turning north towards Missouri. 21 and 13 made up our path north to get us around Bransom, then it was 160 east to get us over to Taneyville. These were all very nice roads, but nothing compared to what was ahead.
Next we turned on to MO FF, our first “double letter” road of the trip. This was a nice little winding road that ran through a heavily wooded area with farms or homes on either side. It was on this road that a large Dodge pickup pulled out in front of DaJudge and forced him to drop both anchors to avoid a crash. This was a stark reminder that people do live along these roads we love so much, and sometimes they have no qualms about pulling out in front of motorcycles they perceive are going too fast. After all, these are “their” roads and it’s their duty to slow us down.
After a few miles of FF and then DD, we came to what is unequivocally the best stretch of road I encountered the entire trip, perhaps in my entire life. Hwy 125 from DD to the Peel Ferry. This magical stretch of road is really best described as an asphalt roller coaster. The pavement was flawless, like it was just paved with MotoGP asphalt just yesterday. It undulated up and down over ridges and through small valleys, all the while curving back and forth in 20-30 mph banked sweepers (we might have taken them slightly faster than that). And that banking in the corners was pretty significant, enough that it seemed like the suspension on my bike was fully compressed into the turn. I honestly don’t remember if there were many intersections or driveways. I was completely focussed on the road and all its glory. Our timing for riding 125 was incredibly fortuitous: It was mid-morning, temperatures were ideal in the mid 60s. The road was heavily lined with trees, blocking the direct sunlight, but allowing enough light to filter through to provide perfect visibility. The trees were just beginning to turn, but not yet dropping their leaves. We had been riding for a couple of hours at that point, so our tires were warm, muscles were loose, and our attention was sharp. All of these variables coalesced into the most utopic riding experience I’ve ever had.
We came to Rueter at the crossroads of 125 and 160 and pulled off to reflect on the road we had just traveled, All of us were were grinning from ear to ear and saying let’s do it again. In retrospect, we probably should have just turned around and run that stretch of road again, maybe a couple more times. But the route was calling and we could not resist moving forward.
I can’t wait to ride that road again.
On a side note, we heard reports that 125 north of MO DD is under construction, and might even have a detour. After hearing that I no longer felt bad about cutting that section out of the route,
We continued on, and in about 12 miles we arrived at the Peel Ferry. I had never ridden this ferry, but others had and warned us that we could be in for a 45-90 minute wait, depending on where the ferry was when we arrived. We, however, were still riding on clouds, drinking from rainbows, and sprinkled with unicorn dust as a result of our trip down Hwy 125, and we would have no such foul luck. As we approached the ferry there’s a stop sign with instructions to wait. We stopped and could see the ferry in the distance, sitting at the north landing, only about half full. The ferryman waved us forward and we rolled right onto the boat with plenty of room for all of our bikes. Our timing could not have been more perfect.
My ugly mug with a view of our bikes on the ferry. We had plenty of room to stand and stretch, and move around as we crossed. The ride was very smooth.
DaJudge pondering how BMW could make a bike with such an ugly face. (I kid, I kid!.....sort of
)
Texxter found a place to use the restroom.
No, my bad, he was just using his phone.
From there we headed into Yellville with plans to grab lunch and refuel, but as we rode into town we noticed that there were a LOT of people walking towards the town center. School kids of all ages, families, etc, all just heading into downtown on foot. And then the car and truck traffic got heavier and heavier. We figured out within a few minutes that Yellville was having a festival called the Turkey Trot, and the whole downtown square was shut down. The crowds were huge and the traffic was thick, so after we filled our gas tanks, we got out of town as quickly as we could and went searching elsewhere for lunch. We ended up in Flippin at Diego’s Fresh Mex. It was delicious, and best of all there were no crowds!
It’s a good thing we were able to find something to eat, because we were going to need our strength for the next roller coaster, AR341, AKA Push Mountain Road. This road, like Hwy 125, is also motorcycling nirvana, but with the pavement being a little rougher, and the curves a little more spread out, I’m going to say it’s one level lower in nirvana than 125 (pretty sure that’s not how nirvana works, but you get the idea) It’s an excellent road, but IMO 125 is just a little better. On the bright side, about ⅓ of the way down, it gets new pavement, which was a very pleasant surprise. It’s also about twice as long as the section of 125 that we ran.
At the bottom of Push Mountain Road, we turned west on AR14. This road was one of the bigger surprises on this route. It’s a very nice road that stretches for many miles going west from Big Flat, through Harriet, across the Buffalo River on a newer concrete bridge, and back up to our favorite festival town, you guessed it, Yellville. 14 was filled with curves and had nice pavement. An underrated road, for sure. Unfortunately, at the time we didn’t know of a good way to avoid going back through Yellville. Looking at the map now, we probably could have taken AR235 down through Bruno and Eros and joined back up on 412 west of town. On the downside that would have added quite a few miles to an already pretty long day.
So we rode through Yellville again, then picked up HWY412 to make some time heading west, then in Bellafonte took AR206 to bypass around Harrison. A few more miles of HWY412 (and some construction, unfortunately) got us to Berryville, where I had found a little side route that took us down AR221, cutting out most of Berryville. AR221 brought us to another surprisingly pleasant road, Carroll County Road 302. This is a paved county road that sweeps generally north and south, gently rolling through wooded hills alternating with valleys of farmland. We took it from the south end, north towards Eureka Springs. The pavement quality is good, but the road is very narrow, and doesn’t have lane stripes, so slow speeds are called for. I didn’t mind this at all, though. It was the perfect way to wind down the ride. It was a nice, relaxed pace through gorgeous countryside. CR302 ends at HWY62 on the outskirts of Eureka Springs, which, again, was a perfect way to end up the ride.
Once into town, we refueled then rolled into the hotel parking lot worn out, sweaty, and tired, but enormously happy. It was truly a great day of riding.