Day 1
I decided to take both my Transalp and my WR250F. I figured that I might find the TA too much of a handful offroad and also wanted to test the WR on the pavement. So I loaded the gear the night before and just had to load both bikes in the morning. I headed out from my house around 7am to go get chopperbob and his bike. He's on the southside of Austin and I'm on the north side so it took about an hour to get there. I didn't even think to get pictures of the truck loaded or the trip out. We hit some winds about Ft. Stockton and gas comsumption went way up. Got stuck waiting at a train crossing in Alpine, but after 20 minutes we found a way around. Got to the Chisos Mining Co. hotel around 4pm and unloaded. I had the GPS coordinates for Uncle's place and we headed out, but didn't even get 100 yards before I save Dave (cagivia 549) at Kathy's Kosmic Kowgirl. He knew the way so we followed him over. Met a bunch of folks there and while we were shooting the breeze, Richard_, Connie and Jeff showed up, followed by Squeaky and the rest of her group from Houston.
Here's a look at a double room at the Chisos Mining Company/Easter Egg Motel.
As the Houston group set up their camps, I helped Squeaky with a stealth upgrade/reattachment of her license plate so Bill (DFW_Warrior) wouldn't know there was a problem...oops did I let the cat out of the bag? Oh well, that sucker isn't coming off now. Eventually we went to dinner at the High Sierra Bar and grill. Finally a picture, here's part of my Tacos Alambre:
Day 2
Met up with folks over breakfast at Kathy's. There are lots of other pictures already posted of that, but I never did see this rig offroad.
I headed out for Old Maverick road with Gary (DrBlackbird), Chopperbob, Carl (on a DRZ), Darrin (KTM 950) and another guy whose name escapes me on a KTM 525. I was definitely the slower of the bunch on my Transalp, but I wanted to get used to it offroad. We did a driveby of the parking area by Santa Elena canyon. None of us wanted to hike out there so we kept moving. However, just down the road is the takeout area for some of the rafting trips so we rode right down to the river. Gary debated about riding right over to Mexico, but decided just dipping the tires in the Rio Grande was sufficient.
Here's the crew on River Road about two minutes before KenH came past on his TW200.
Before this picture I had one drop of the TA in the sand. I had figured out how to ride the beast in the sand. It involved almost sitting on the passenger portion of the corbin seat and squeezing the tank with my knees. Doing that and giving it throttle is was actually quite comfortable. Unfortunately the unnamed rider on the KTM525 was slower than I was in the loose stuff and I would catch up with him in longer sections. He got wobbly one time and stopped. I stopped too, then decided to go around him. At slow speed I was not successful in swapping to the other track and dropped the TA in the middle pile of sand.
Later the group headed down a false track along a creek bed. I knew it met back up with the road just a little ways up so I just stayed on the road. Right around the corner from that split I ran into Squeaky, DFW_warrior and Calgary-Yogi. I had a brief conversation, then kept rolling. I felt very comfortable at that point because I had the three of them behind me and my group out in front. Here's a picture of the Mule Ears on along the way:
Along the way I passed a pickup with a guy and his black lab. About 5 minutes later I got stuck on a hill. Literally stuck. I got off line, then got too slow. In giving it gas to get going again in some loose rocks, I dug a hole. The bike almost, but not quite was standing on its own. So I was supporting it with the topbox and using my foot to dig a trench behind it so I could roll it back a couple of feet to make another run at it. Fortunately the afore mentioned pickup showed up and the driver helped my roll it forward out of the hole. I managed to ride it the rest of the way up the hill, but discovered that one of the bolt holes on the front fender was cracked an the fender had shifted. While fixing that, Squeaky and crew showed up and I decided to hang with them until I could meet up with my group again. Which turned out to be only moments away.
We decided that I'd ride sweep behind Squeaky so the other two could pick the pace a little. As we started rolling I got going before Squeaky, but expected her to go by. However the ground was soft so I had shifted my weight and gotten on the gas a little. She didn't want to pass in the loose stuff. This lead right into a loose uphill with a turn at the top. I just happened to be in the good line and she was to my left in a not so good one. I made it up, but she got stopped halfway. As I slowed down and kept looking back to see if she was going to get going again, I managed to ease to a stop in a berm of soft stuff on the side of the road (read this as slow speed drop). Tried to pick up the TA quickly but couldn't. So I started back to help the Squeaker and of course Bill and Graeme showed up along with Darrin and Gary from my original group. Perfect timing. Two bikes down and we get an audience. Anyway that was the end of my dirt naps for the TA. I had one other funny incident with an audience a few miles later. I was pacing Squeaky and we went into a ravine moving along at a comfortable speed. It had a little errosion dip at the bottom. Because we were moving along, my suspension was already partially compressed and I hit the dip pretty hard. This caused the latch on my Jesse topbox to release and eject a couple of items. Just as I started to walk back for them, another group of rides came along. Hope they got a good laugh out of that.
The rest of the day was uneventful and here's a shot of our bikes near the end of River Road:
After a cool down, refueling and a snack at Rio Grande Village, we went to Boquillas Canyon for a couple of pics, then back to Terlingua.
Side Note. Chopperbob was using a trials tire on the back of his Husqvarna TE510. My brother in law loves using one on his XR400 and it has worked well for him. On Bob's bike though it didn't work out too well.
I don't know whether it was the rocks, the pavement, or the 510's power that did it in, but it was toast. I've also notice that knobbies last longer if you take it easy on them when they are new. This one got ridden normally from the get go.
On my way back to the hotel from Roger's that evening I tried to capture the moon over the Transalp. Moon sure seemed bigger when I was trying to take the picture.
Day 3
Having ridden the TA on River Road, I was ready for something less challenging. To ride that is. So the WR was loaded up my gear. I briefly switched some stuff over to the TA when I thought I was heading out for a search party, but the missing rider showed up and I moved everything back and we headed out for Glenn Springs road and Black Gap road. This time I was with Scott (Tourmeister), Bill and Graeme. Oh yeah, Elzi (TexasShadow) and Ed (Ed29) were sort of with us. We started off together and tooks a couple of breaks together, but split off at Black Gap then reunited at River Road.
We met another rider heading north on Glenn Springs who warned us there was a Honda Ridgeline that lost its oilpan on Black Gap. So we kept that in mind, but it had been moved off by the time we got there. Ed and Elzi saw it get towed past them while they were waiting for us at River Road and Glenn Springs.
Black Gap was uneventful. Having now ridden Black Gap road in both directions, I will say going south to north is much easier. Keep that in mind if you decide to try it sometime and you aren't sure you about it. All the bikes made it through fine, but it was getting hot. We kept moving and eventually met up with Ed and Elzi. However, not too long after leaving Black Gap road, Scott's footpeg started to loosen up. This was the same one that got damaged on his Arizona adventure. It appeared that the threads were damaged.
He chose to leave it on and loose and keep riding. This turned out to be a bad idea. However I did enjoy following him through a deep sandy area where the National Guard and Border Patrol were working on the road. Can't stand with only one footpeg. Sorry, no pictures of that.
After meeting up, Scott headed for the end of the River road a couple minutes in front of us. Graeme gave Bill and I permission to make better time since he had Ed and Elzi behind him for support. Great, game on. Bill took off and started to leave me, but I got to riding more smoothly and wasn't loosing much ground. He noticed me still back there and picked up the pace. We basically ran at the speed limit, but that was faster than we had been going earlier. Somehow one legged Scott still beat us to the end of the road.
Just before we reached the pavement we saw a dusty Honda Ridgeline parked with some construction vehicles by the side of the road. This is what we saw:
Check out the airbags:
I suspect they got something with the bumper too when they took out the oilpan.
At Rio Grande Village, we found Soozy and echo_boom (Rachel) and they finished the day riding with us on the pavement. Also we ran into Robert (GSer) and Chris. They had done what we had, but on a BMW X-challenge (good choice) and a 1150 GS (I thought it was tough on the TA). We decided the heat was too much to try Old Ore Road and it was alreay midafternoon. So a quick side trip to Boquillas canyon for another bike photo:
Then up to the Chisos Basin to cool off.
Then some Pecan cobbler with some ice cream:
After showing up, I wandered over to the Front Porch at the Starlight. I had one of Richard's beers (thanks Richard) and joined the coversations under the porch cover. This is local hangout and this is normal behavior. I just point that out before I launch into the interesting events to follow. As we are shooting the beeze and telling riding stories, a guy on a Hayabusa (no gear) came roaring into the parking lot, stopped in front of the Starlight, semi-burned out/wheelied towards us then did a fast stop right by a shack in the parking lot. Got off and walked into the Starlight. Kind of squidly behavior and we kind of mumbled to ourselves about that. Within 5 minutes a deputy sherrif's vehicle rolls through the parking lot and we all wondered if that was more than a coincidence, but he kept going and was quickly forgotten. Unfortunately for me that is. I noticed Soozy and a young man (Jason?) eyeing a Buell Ullyses in the parking lot. Since I had just been talking to the owner I wandered off the porch with my beer to tell them who the owner was and...yep, I hear the sudden voice of authority telling me no beer outside of the building. Well, that makes sense, keep it on the porch and I should have know better to I quickly comply. However he decides that the porch is not part the building and tells all twenty or so of us to loose the beer. So we all do. This puts a damper on the evening and people start to wander back to Roger's. About this time, Hayabusa man wanders back out, climbs on the bike, spins the tire in the parking lot, then once he hits the pavement area, lofts his tire. Dave has already said something about the guy in a previous post, but that definitely didn't help our image out there. And no, he was not one of the folks that went out there for the Ride the Rio.
Day 4
Packed up and went home. Sorry, but that's pretty much the best way to describe the trip back.
Had a great time and enjoyed talking with everybody and meeting new folks. Good to get some faces with screens names too.