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Wanted to share a ride a few of us did this past weekend.
There is a bit of history to it though:
Last year, after I rode to Colorado and rode there with my buddy, he wanted to return the favor and come down here on his bike. Twice, we planned this for last fall but then - once he dropped his FJR on his driveway 3 days before the trip (around $2000 of damage) and once I broke my nose doing dumb stuff on my mountain bike about a week before the trip. So I was a bit concerned when about a week ago my V-Strom started blowing fuses. Is this a sign or something? Anyway, figured it all out and he rode down from CO this past Friday...
4 of us went. Two buddies from work (leann2it from this forum is one of them) and buddy from CO. Bikes: a Tiger 1050, an FJR, a Yamaha XS 650 and my Wee Strom.
The route we took is here. Basically - spend the night at Jasper, AR, ride a bunch of roads before and after and come home. Have fun. Simple!
The ride started in a proper way with some BBQ breakfast buritos; we made it just in time (around 8:15 AM) as about 30 mins later, huge cowds started showing up from Jimmy Buffet's concert (on nearby soccer stadium):
Then we headed north, slabbing it on 75 to make it to the "good stuff" ASAP. Had some dark clouds over us but no rain. Kept us cool:
We made it to Stringtown with little fuss. Took 43 East. This was a great surprise to many of us - as we did not know of this road before. One of us from work rode this before so we wanted to try it. If you go to Talimena, you should definitely take it!
Close to Talihina there was a road where two bridges were worked on, but that did not stop us:
Talimena was as good as ever; note - pic is fuzzy as it was a screenshot from a video (buddy from CO had a high def helmet video cam, and turns out I did not take my camera memory card and internal memory was full):
In Mena, we went to Papa Poblanos - definitely great Mexican food place:
Heading north towards Ozark; I got a SD card for my cam at Walmart...
This is now north of Ozark on 23:
Aww, the shark luvs it:
Following the route, the sun is getting lower, we are still zooming by...
We took a quick break on our way to Jasper, here:
It felt like the time stopped there so this seemed appropriate:
Got on bikes again and zooming toward Jasper some more. (I set my camera to slower shutter speed too)
Zoom!!
We finally made it to Jasper; and not a minute too soon. We started to see deer on the road as it was getting darker. Here are the world-class accomodations we found. Yay.
Nobody had cell service but me (on Verizon) - and my calls were dropping but I was able to text some of our wives so they knew we were OK. Next day we found out that if you walk just 50 feet toward the mountain, even AT&T guys had signal! This place is a "geographic oddity"!
The lights in the town are a bit decieving; everything shuts down at 8 - 8:30. But we find the pizza in this pizza place. The owner (I think) had an interesting was to deal with customers, heh... One of us ordered a "meat lover's pizza". First thing she said was "You are brave". She was kidding like that you know but hmmm...
After spending the night (a bit creeped out by the room and wildlife inside and out of it) - we took off on Hwy 7 towards Russellville; a bit too residential in areas but still awesome riding:
A few more shots from Hwy 7, not exactly sure where:
Bill's Tiger loved it too:
Over my shoulder:
We made it to Glenwood; not many options for lunch but Subway worked well. By this time, it was getting really warm:
Some more surprisingly (for me) good riding this far south!
My buddy from CO passing me on one of straighter roads:
I think this was around Valliant, where we stopped for gas and mandatory "gulp down a Gatorade" break. Another biker was getting some beer and ice. We were all looking at that ice thinking how we'd like to jump into the ice machine by now. The gentlemen told us about a little turn we can take left on 109 which should be more fun...
...so it was more fun than 70!
From there on, did not take any more photos; it was just too close to home I guess and therefore not as interesting. Made it home around 6:10 PM. Few others had 20-30 more mins to go...
The day after (Monday) - I rode with my buddy from CO half way to Wichita Falls, as he headed back to CO.
My mileage total was 872 miles for the trip.
What struck me the most about the trip was that the roads up there in the Ozarks are in fact as good as any roads in Smoky Mountains, which I did not know. Some TN/NC roads get a lot of atention but - with the exception of the Dragon (which is really "technical") - what we rode up there was as good as anything else I rode in TN two years ago. I am saying this as a good thing. Ozarks are closer!!
We had a lot of fun!
There is a bit of history to it though:
Last year, after I rode to Colorado and rode there with my buddy, he wanted to return the favor and come down here on his bike. Twice, we planned this for last fall but then - once he dropped his FJR on his driveway 3 days before the trip (around $2000 of damage) and once I broke my nose doing dumb stuff on my mountain bike about a week before the trip. So I was a bit concerned when about a week ago my V-Strom started blowing fuses. Is this a sign or something? Anyway, figured it all out and he rode down from CO this past Friday...
4 of us went. Two buddies from work (leann2it from this forum is one of them) and buddy from CO. Bikes: a Tiger 1050, an FJR, a Yamaha XS 650 and my Wee Strom.
The route we took is here. Basically - spend the night at Jasper, AR, ride a bunch of roads before and after and come home. Have fun. Simple!
The ride started in a proper way with some BBQ breakfast buritos; we made it just in time (around 8:15 AM) as about 30 mins later, huge cowds started showing up from Jimmy Buffet's concert (on nearby soccer stadium):
Then we headed north, slabbing it on 75 to make it to the "good stuff" ASAP. Had some dark clouds over us but no rain. Kept us cool:
We made it to Stringtown with little fuss. Took 43 East. This was a great surprise to many of us - as we did not know of this road before. One of us from work rode this before so we wanted to try it. If you go to Talimena, you should definitely take it!
Close to Talihina there was a road where two bridges were worked on, but that did not stop us:
Talimena was as good as ever; note - pic is fuzzy as it was a screenshot from a video (buddy from CO had a high def helmet video cam, and turns out I did not take my camera memory card and internal memory was full):
In Mena, we went to Papa Poblanos - definitely great Mexican food place:
Heading north towards Ozark; I got a SD card for my cam at Walmart...
This is now north of Ozark on 23:
Aww, the shark luvs it:
Following the route, the sun is getting lower, we are still zooming by...
We took a quick break on our way to Jasper, here:
It felt like the time stopped there so this seemed appropriate:
Got on bikes again and zooming toward Jasper some more. (I set my camera to slower shutter speed too)
Zoom!!
We finally made it to Jasper; and not a minute too soon. We started to see deer on the road as it was getting darker. Here are the world-class accomodations we found. Yay.
Nobody had cell service but me (on Verizon) - and my calls were dropping but I was able to text some of our wives so they knew we were OK. Next day we found out that if you walk just 50 feet toward the mountain, even AT&T guys had signal! This place is a "geographic oddity"!
The lights in the town are a bit decieving; everything shuts down at 8 - 8:30. But we find the pizza in this pizza place. The owner (I think) had an interesting was to deal with customers, heh... One of us ordered a "meat lover's pizza". First thing she said was "You are brave". She was kidding like that you know but hmmm...
After spending the night (a bit creeped out by the room and wildlife inside and out of it) - we took off on Hwy 7 towards Russellville; a bit too residential in areas but still awesome riding:
A few more shots from Hwy 7, not exactly sure where:
Bill's Tiger loved it too:
Over my shoulder:
We made it to Glenwood; not many options for lunch but Subway worked well. By this time, it was getting really warm:
Some more surprisingly (for me) good riding this far south!
My buddy from CO passing me on one of straighter roads:
I think this was around Valliant, where we stopped for gas and mandatory "gulp down a Gatorade" break. Another biker was getting some beer and ice. We were all looking at that ice thinking how we'd like to jump into the ice machine by now. The gentlemen told us about a little turn we can take left on 109 which should be more fun...
...so it was more fun than 70!
From there on, did not take any more photos; it was just too close to home I guess and therefore not as interesting. Made it home around 6:10 PM. Few others had 20-30 more mins to go...
The day after (Monday) - I rode with my buddy from CO half way to Wichita Falls, as he headed back to CO.
My mileage total was 872 miles for the trip.
What struck me the most about the trip was that the roads up there in the Ozarks are in fact as good as any roads in Smoky Mountains, which I did not know. Some TN/NC roads get a lot of atention but - with the exception of the Dragon (which is really "technical") - what we rode up there was as good as anything else I rode in TN two years ago. I am saying this as a good thing. Ozarks are closer!!
We had a lot of fun!
Here are a few I took of trip but none of them do justice to the beauty of Arkansas that we saw:
