Yamaha and Honda African Singles explore the Texas Savannah
After searching deep inside the bowels of the
Texas dual-sport archives, I discovered about six hundred miles of dirt worthy routes leading to and from Junction. I contacted Jeff (Jeff S) that we needed to make a quick weekend trip to the eastern outpost of this rustic Texas hamlet that would follow the same path of an old motorcycle adventure trail from a bygone era. Within a few days, stuntman Jeff plotted our GPS escape path from the congested city. Good work, Jeff!
We proceeded to ride down ancient Apache and Tonkawa Indian trails plowing through an occasional deep river crossing including the infamous
James River that has claimed the life of multiple adventure bikes throughout the years. With slipping and sliding we both survived it's clutches...except there was that ONE slick section called “Mrs. Teflon” just after crossing the main James River Crossing. Feeling overly confident, I sauntered over “Mrs. Teflon” smirking to myself how easy this particular low water crossing is. Half-way through the friendly low water crossing, my back tire spun out from behind and I tried to do the dance of life but was savagely thrown to the rocky river bottom. This river crossing had a crowned surface. I had failed to read it's surface demeanor.
As stuntman Jeff pointed out as I was sitting drenched with water in the creek bed, "
hey dude, you were riding on the rock bottom side that was sloping down". Thanks Jeff for the advice.
After a few minutes of bending back the Bark "woof" Busters and mirrors and tightening loose bolts, we were on our way. That was my first low water inauguration in several years, so it was a humbling experience to realize that something so small can disrupt your riding life in a very short time, all at .0005 MPH.
We arrived in Junction around 4:00 in the afternoon. That was too early to call it a day for us dirt cowboys. We picked up the
Butler Map and found several fun routes north of Junction. We explored that area until near sunset, then we wiggled back at highway speed to Junction. The next day we took a 400 mile Foghat “slow-ride” back to Austin via the Three Sisters and several dirt goat paths along the way including
Hackberry Road that was quite lush from all of the recent rain. After a fun 600 mile weekend of dual-sporting, all I can say is I can't wait to return!
Here are a few pictures from this weekend's romp.
Jeff sipping on his cantina
The
African Singles resting by the Llano River near Junction
CR 372 near Junction (this picture was taken by Jeff)