Re: New Year's DS Ride reports
...continuing...
Chris was down but uninjured and the bike wasn't really any worse for the wear. Chris uprighted the bike and pushed it off the bridge to recheck himself and the bike. A few minutes later he had his camera out and was photographing others attempting the water crossings. Chris rode with us the rest of the day. All's well that ends well.
As you may have guessed, I got a lot of photos at this particular water crossing. In fact, after we all finally made it across this crossing I took only one other photograph the entire day. I apologize for slacking off.
I did get some pretty good photos of many of the riders at this crossing. I didn't get everyone, but I did get most. I'll just post a few of them here but all the pics are posted in my
smugmug album. If you rode with the group today and want to see if I got a picture of you,
here's the link to all the pics. Feel free to download any or all the pictures.
The next generation. Centex Tom brought his son today. It was young Ryan's first dual sport ride. Welcome, Ryan! I'm glad you rode with us and I hope you had an adventure. You did great today so tell your dad you need to go ride Big Bend next.
Rick M rode the world's best looking KLR today. He washed it just yesterday but that didn't stop him from crossing with gusto and getting the bike dirty today. Here he is making the KLR earn its pay.
The V-Strom (650 or 1000) really is an adventure bike and is quite capable of handling any dual sport road in the hill country. Several riders proved this fact again today.
Strom Power. Throwing
the fist of defiance for the camera...
...nearly proved fatal. In the exact same place that Chris went down earlier, the
"wave to the camera" coincided with
"a loss of traction". Luckily the rider saved it and kept the bike upright. It was a little ugly, but that's still much better than going down.
The Ural w/sidecar handled this crossing with ease. The two sandy crossings further up the road proved to a bit more challenging, but they did make it through.
Some riders crossed with a lot of enthusiasm, as demonstrated here. I'm a chicken so I creep slowly across these things. Those braver than me cross faster, which sprays water everywhere and makes for a much more dramatic photo.
After this crossing, there are a few more little ones on CR 310 but nothing of real interest. CR 315, however, crosses Sandy Creek twice. The reason it's called Sandy Creek is because, well, it's really sandy. Which makes the crossings a bit challenging because the sand is loose and you can lose a front end in it in a heartbeat. Or sink both tires in the sand, sticking the bike. Or hit a really big rock and cause your bike to do unexpected things. In short, it's harder than it looks. My apologies for not getting more shots.
After a few hours of getting everyone across all the water, we made a bee-line for Llano and Coopers BBQ. I had originally expected that we would arrive around 12:30 p.m. or so. But, it takes a lot longer to get 30 riders across all those water crossings than it does to get 4-5 across, so we were running 2 hours later than I had planned.
Which meant a decision had to be made after lunch - keep going or head for home. If we stuck to the original route I knew we would not get back to Austin before dark. I told the group that those who definitely wanted to get home before dark should skip the rest of the planned route and head back.
My group of 7 decided to keep going, so after lunch we rode further west for more dirt. A circuitous route looped us down several fun dirt roads and around the back side of Enchanted Rock.
At this point we were losing daylight fast so I made a command decision to abandon the rest of the route and head straight for Austin at warp speed. As it turns out, warp speed for a dual sport bike is somewhat short of actual warp speed, so we were racing the sun and it was winning. As we rode east on Hwy 290, riders slowly exited the group, headed for home on whatever route best suited them. Milton and I ended up riding together in the dark. I made it home just a few minutes after the last rays of daylight were gone.
I really had a good tome today. Thanks again to all who came out for the ride.