Norton-Triumph Rally…on a KTM

[KsTeveM]

It’s that time again. Time for me to take another wrong brand bike to the North Texas Norton Owners Association annual rally in Leakey. I did a report last year, here, with some expanded Norton history as I did research for myself about those bikes. After spending a weekend with those guys last year, my favorite bike that I saw at the Norton Rally was the below specimen. The LC8 sound is so sweet. Foreshadowing?

…..out of the shadows…..you know what bike I’m riding this year, come on little brother!!!

So while I’m at it, why not show up with another non-Norton bike? Ok, will do. @bwdmax is still recovering from a fallopian mishap in his knee from when we were in Montana last year, report here. He wants to get some easier saddle time in on the weestrom, come on brother, you and your little wee. More to follow, the two of us are about to roll out. Yall get back to work now!!!! And you guys on that retirement thread I lurk on, yall get back to honey do stuff

 

[gixxerjasen]

This is gonna be good.

 

[Tigerkf]

Nah, he never travels!

 

[KsTeveM]

We got rolling and thought we would do River Rd in the New Braunfels area as we made our way west. There are worse spring time routes.

Wiggled our way around Canyon Lake. Skipped Luckenbach this time, we are already living it. It? The successful life we’re living of course!

We blew around this corner and there was a gaggle of turkeys in full display. Enjoying the back roads.

Backroad it to Comfort, found some grub. Kinda a girly place, but we enjoyed it. Shhh. We did get a free peanut butter homemade cookie, it appears one of us made an impression on the hostess. You guess who.

Best part of this town, this truck. I have a sweet spot for step side long beds.

And a sweet spot for this fender style?

Snagged a back road…..and some water to douse my riding shirt, glorious!

We got into some good pavement. Sad words coming out of my dirt mouth?

Maybe, but it was a pretty ride.

Eventually hopped onto one of the sisters. We didn’t want to admit it, but we were sweet on her.

This is probably my favorite pic of the day. Wee wee wee all the way home!

Touchdown in Leakey. I’ve done all those roads before but it was really nice riding with Garbear, much of it was new to him and that is always cool.

Already seeing some cool machines.

We met up with my buddy Scot that is in this club, and his wife Cara.

Don’t ask questions. More bikes…..

Scot is bikeless and plans to snag a bike from the club to do some vintage riding. Well, I guess technically he is not bikeless, he still owns the below. If anyone is interested in a really low mile thruxton for the engine, parts etc., PM me. Lot of good parts there and I can’t imagine that the engine isn’t good. I routinely day dream about taking the salvage and building a funky desert sled out of it. I need that like I need a hole in my head.

Back to the rally…and rain coming down…and hail…..

It passed pretty quickly and we got back to looking at all the vintage bikes. This one is a 3 cyl 2 stroke!

With original grips? Apologies if you got a blister just looking at it

More pics of random bikes that keep rolling in, quite a variety of interesting units!

The below was a really nice bike, I believe a ‘72.

Same guy owned this beauty, ‘57 model….

We started appreciating the evolution of the engineering on the various bikes…..brake venting, dual brake arms, heat sinks etc. Lot of neat things!! Makes you appreciate our modern bikes even more.

I started asking more inquisitive questions of the club president, wanting to experience these older machines, maybe ride one. He then told me to just ride the below pictured bike. What in the world? Wonder what tomorrow will bring? Nighty night tee dub tees.

P.S. I don’t get out much or get to ride cool stuff. Please feel sorry for me.

 

[Tourmeister]

That truck was awesome!

The other stuff was nice too

 

[gixxerjasen]

P.S. I don’t get out much or get to ride cool stuff. Please feel sorry for me.

Says the guy with the coolest bike at the show.

 

[KsTeveM]

Says the guy with the coolest bike at the show.

Good morning pic for you little buddy……

 

[gixxerjasen]

You almost managed to keep that ugly V-Strom out of the photo but it sneaked in anyway. At least it's not a KLR.

 

[TNC]

Shameless interlopers showing up at other people's rallies just to show off their highfalutin, lederhosen motorbikes. It's shameful, Steve. Once again Germany invades Britain. Oh the humanity.

 

[William Wolfen]

That Z50 looks like a much better kept version of the one that happened to be the first motorcycle I spent any real amount of time on. I borrowed it from a friend after he got a Grom. It was a '79, as I recall. Fun bike when you don't have access to anything else. Never looked back after I bought my DR650!

 

[KsTeveM]

I don’t know about y’all, but looks like them Duke Boys are in trouble?

 

[woodsguy]

Is that his skid mark?

 

[KsTeveM]

Is that his skid mark?

I can tell you that it wasn’t from massive horsepower being laid down by the V-Sloth

 

[bwdmax]

It is just my track in the slime. My brain did a flip flop on me for some reason. I chose the slime instead of the track that is usually not slick.
If you’re gonna be dumb you got to be tough.

I really think it is @gixxerjasen fault.

You almost managed to keep that ugly V-Strom out of the photo but it sneaked in anyway. At least it's not a KLR.

He hurt the V-Sloth’s feelings and stole his confidence. He was already feeling inferior due to all the cool iron here and then bam a punch straight to the nose from Jason.

 

[KsTeveM]

The Duke Boys headed out this morning and hopped over to Camp Wood out the gate on one of the sisters. Chilly morning, really nice.

We sniffed out some dirt. I’m staying at this cabin place in a few months with the fam, I wanted to eye ball it a bit more. Onward.

I like this little pass, good views. Then we dropped down into a valley of ranches.

We swapped bikes for a bit. Why you ask? Why would I do that? I don’t know.

Maybe it was planting a seed….the kind that results in a second Super Enduro?

We got into the heart of this ride with beautiful river crossings. Just glorious.

Well mostly glorious…..Garbear got slimed and took a little spill. No harm no foul, both he and the bike were fine.

Took a little break here. Hard not to enjoy this spot.

Ok, on with it, we have over a hundred miles still to go.

Made our way into Rocksprings and got some lunch with Scot and Cara at the Jailhouse Cafe. Pretty good eats.

Onward, ate some boring pavement…..to get to some more non-boring dirt.

Again we ate some fun pavement, part of another one of the sisters, and then on to more dirt.

Not sure what was going on in the below pic, but for sure it wasn’t me jumping a cattle guard.

Started getting a little warmer out, did my bird bath trick.

Pop out of that, then get on more fun pavement, another nother one of the sisters, and what I feel is the best sister. We cautiously hit it with a decent pace.

That’ll do her, we are back at hq. Pretty good day. Now to clean up and get ready for the night life….burn some meat and listen to live music. TTFN

 

[KsTeveM]

Meat got burned and consumed. Bottles got opened and consumed.

Friends were consumed with having a good time!!

 

[Tourmeister]

I try to avoid riding other people's bikes... It always seems to lead to me buying another bike

 

[woodsguy]

Meat got burned and consumed. Bottles got opened and consumed.

Friends were consumed with having a good time!!

One of those is not much like the others! The one I like.

 

[KsTeveM]

Anybody still there? Wondering what me and Garbear are up to? No? Too bad, we will tell you anyway. We managed to see some cool stuff today. Off the rip we headed north out of town to head for the motorcycle museum.

The museum, pretty impressive collection, around 63 bikes. I will post some pics of the ones that really caught my eye for various reasons. Mechanicals, beauty, lighting?

This one was sure noteworthy, similar bike to the one the real Lawrence of Arabia died on.

Enough living in the past. We slid a little further south and picked up another greatest hits dirt road.

Really was a glorious morning, we were chilly riding these back roads and making crossings. Garbear skirted a puddle, I was like how deep is it really? Well when water came over my boots while standing on the Super Enduro, it was actually pretty deep

More pretty scenery.

We made our way over to Sabinal for a break and headed back out.

The main objective of the day for me was hitting the Reagan Wells area.

In the old days this road went all the way through to 337. Picture wagons, model Ts and being neighborly. But “progress”……that’s all out the window. But we can get pretty far back up in here.

I am familiar with this area cause a family friend had a property way back up in here once upon a time. I spent my honeymoon there, a week of chopping wood and…..playing monopoly. And of course I snuck in a bike ride or two.

I knew the paved portion would be decent and was hoping we could still get pretty far back in there on dirt through bump gates.

We did, and poked up further hoping I would run across someone I could talk to….but we didn’t run into a single person/car. Well, one car.

I hate dead ends, but we both really enjoyed it back in here.

Winding down the day, heading north through Silver Mine Pass.

We decided to slip through backroads in Concan, the back side of Garner and slide into Leakey via Rio Frio. We’ve managed to hit a lot of different roads the past several days. Feeling good about this trek.

We are back at HQ. Another successful day I think. Hung out with friends, our bestest friends, Scot and Cara…aka Special K!

And a fixture at these events, Alton! I am hoping he can paint something moto for me next year, dude is an artist. That’s about all on the reporting front for the day, smell ya later!!

 

[KsTeveM]

Oh, and I forgot about the trauma I experienced today, trying to suppress it I guess. Gary has been trying to figure out a way into Super Enduro ownership. Take notice of the snake in front of his bike. Also notice how he doesn’t swerve like the rest of us would have.

Now I wish you could hear the massive explosion of power coming from his high horsepower bike in the next photo, trying to sling that deadly king cobra on me.

And I don’t know if you guys can see the disappointment in his facial expression in this next pic….when the snake didn’t take me out?

 

[Tigerkf]

I try to avoid riding other people's bikes... It always seems to lead to me buying another bike

I bet Steve ain't buying a Strom!!!

 

[JMZ]

The Strom is a great bike until you ride something else .

 

[KsTeveM]

I bet Steve ain't buying a Strom!!!

I’m trying to cut back

 

[KsTeveM]

Time to go home. Said my goodbyes to these “once a year friends” and rolled out. Funny how those kinds of relationships can be minimal in time but impactful and linger in your soul?

Skooting east, I shook it up with a different route home. Not as many pics, it happens. And this front surprised us, way colder than we expected. Rolled out of a 50 degree Leakey. And you know some of those low lying ‘hollas’ were in the 40s.

We slipped into Bandera and found a place to eat breakfast and Garbear bought a sweatshirt and some thicker gloves at a Family Dollar next door. I decided to tough it out, and whined in my helmet when he wasn’t looking.

That’s about that, I’m back at HQ Stevo. Moving on in my brain…..what’s next……HC500 is a month out!!! Smell you then, if not before?

 

[bwdmax]

I peeled off from Stevo in New Braunfels and slid down to Stockdale and on to Yorktown where I caught up with the precipitation. Nothing to do know except grind out the last 20 miles and enjoy my sweatshirt and funky winter gloves knowing Steve is high and dry already.

I had a great weekend riding and hanging with some of the guys from the ntNOA. I really enjoy looking at the mechanics of these old bikes. I was able to help a guy with shifting issue on his vintage Moto Guzzi Le Mans.

As always Stevo delivered some solid routes and great camaraderie.