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Summer Time Mountain Ride

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KsTeveM

KsTeveM

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Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
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Location
San Marcos, Texas
First Name
Steve
Last Name
Pylant
About time to go walk about. Most summers we usually head for the mountains and use trucks and jeeps to get a fix. But this year, I pushed for a family bike ride. With two kids now in college and my youngest starting high school, may not be as easy to pull these trips off in the future all together. At the same time, it isn’t easy to pull off camping with a family of 5 and 5 machines. Mrs. KsTeveM will be on a TRX250, Daughter 1 on a KLX 140L, Daughter 2 on a CRF150F, my boy on my old XCW 500 and me on my XCFW 450. Now I need to get all of the bikes and the ATV plus all of the camping gear, personal gear, lawn chairs, riding gear, food, drinks for 5 people in a short bed truck and a 14’ cargo trailer. Challenge accepted. I don’t think these people that live in my house truly appreciate the skills of big daddy.

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Running in parallel to my twisted thinking, Bwdmax made the mistake of asking me what was up my sleeve for the summer. He knows there is usually something stupid brewing in my brain. I told him it was going to be a somewhat tame family type trip this summer. He liked the sounds of the brewing plan and threw his hat in the ring along with Mrs. Bwdmax. He has been busy playing prep and jinga as well with a short bed truck and a 14’ trailer.

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You ever get grouchy when you’ve been expertly packing your rig for hours/days and have it dialed in to perfection…..and then a family member brings out some big piece of crap shaped like an octagon at the last minute? And they set it at the back of the truck on the ground and hop in the back seat without saying a word. Me neither, just wondering.

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Ok, loaded for bear, serenity prayer recited, where to exactly? The typical thing die hard offroad Texans do….leave the second largest state in the union to enjoy motoring through public lands. Classic. We decided to do a mix, half of the vacation we will be camping in northern New Mexico and the other half in a cabin in southern Colorado. Stopped for supper this evening at cool place south of Lubbock, Cook’s Garage. Pretty cool if you haven’t been here, prices were reasonable and super cool stuff laying around.

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I just landed at a KOA to hole up for the night. Bwdmax got a little delayed earlier but will be joining me shortly. This won’t be my typical riding shenanigan type trip but I thought some of you might still enjoy seeing what we sniff out?

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Sounds like a great time to me. Hold his beer while Steve tries to pass everyone calmly on the back wheel.
 
Lots of great trails (scenic...not crazy technical) between SF and south of Montevista. Head out Beavercreek rd and bear southeast toward the Rock creek campground.
 
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The trailer tires were on this trailer when I bought it used a couple years ago. Before the trip I checked the date codes, 2020. I keep it on a slab and cover the tires from the sun. Figured I could get another trip out of them. Guess not. Yesterday at one of our fuel/bathroom stops around Ft Garland, I did my normal kick the tire looking/feeling for a low tire, loose lug nut, funky bearing. All seemed well but I also have a habit of eye balling the tread to look for any bulges or abnormalities. The tire tread appeared more round vs the tires typical flat profile. Ran my hand over the top of the tire and felt more heat than the other tire. And then I found a wire strand, internal steel belts had let go and let the tire misshape a little, so it was about to blow or throw the tread soon. No problem, we had it swapped with a new 8 ply spare I bought before the trip to have two spares for this long run. I had a 4 way and bottle jack at the ready so it was a 10 minute deal. The 6 ply brother on the same side seemed ok. Same with the two on the other side. Go a couple hundred more miles and we stopped to picnic at a city park in Clayton. Did the normal eye ball, tire on same side looked suspect, starting to bulge in weird ways. Slapped on my other spare, also a 2020 vintage 6 ply but this one had never been on the ground and was stored inside the trailer all its life. Rock on to the KOA in Lubbock. Hoping I make it home to get all new 15” 8 ply tires at my normal Discount where I do fleet business….when I have time and recover from the expense of this trip. Bwdmax had two spares still, so we felt ok.

So today I was even more vigilant to keep my spidy senses on high alert. Bwdmax and I trucked along at 66 mph like we had done this entire trip to just go easier on our trucks, tires and fuel mileage. No issues today from Lubbock to Eden where we parted ways. He was headed to Victoria, I was going to San Marcos area. We ate some lunch in Llano and then as I made it to Round Mountain and approached that FM stop sign, pedal felt funny and then went to floor, with no clutch action, meaning truck was still rolling. I was able to do a rolling stop and force shifts to limp to that big parking lot/feed lot next to the gas station. Looked under truck, I can see fluid, coming from up high, clutch master empty. I had fluid in the moto trailer so I filled it up and then had my son push the clutch in and out, it was spraying out at the base of the reservoir. I would guess it is a manufacturer defect on the plastic seam. I replaced my clutch several weeks ago and that hydraulic system was new to match the new clutch. Probably china part? I’m sure I will be sent a new hydraulic kit from Phoenix clutch but it was still a pain to be broke down, with a trailer. But man it could have been worse…this wasn’t a bad place to break down when you’ve been where I’ve been over this past week. My niece and her husband and my nephew and his wife rescued me and my family. We just got the lawn chairs out and laughed it off as we waited for a couple hours. What else you going to do? This tranny wasn’t like older manuals that I have driven with no clutch, this guy was not going to limp home, especially with a loaded trailer. I think I’m going to source a South Bend or Valair hydraulic kit to put on the truck and carry the new Phoenix as a spare.

Big trips aren’t always completely smooth. But we had a good time, got some good riding in, enjoyed the fellowship, saw some new country, and everyone is safely back home….with their trucks, trailers and bikes. I’ll blab more about the riding as I have time over the coming days.

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Ok, more details on the trip. Saturday before last we finished up the truck convoy leg of the trip and landed at our digs in the Sipapu area. Since we were pulling the low rider trailers loaded for bear, we decided to snag a forest service campground vs. really pushing further into the bush on tore up roads for a totally primitive spot. First come first serve on these sites and it was a little crowded since we got there on a Saturday afternoon. We eased several miles down the forest road and found a spot that would fit our trucks and trailers next to a creek at the Policarpio trail head. Worked out fine. Bwdmax’s son and wife snuck into the fold from Dallas, more the merrier.

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The kids stayed in tents and the adults were in the cargo trailers. It got in the 40s at night so it was nice being in the insulated trailer with a real mattress up off the ground for me and the wifey.

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And my nephew Grape Ape was grunting something about a rumble…..

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Grape and Mrs. Grape slid over from Denver with his 5hundy and her ol YZ250…..He had a Smittybuilt roof top tent slid over to the side to make room for the bikes and for the annex room to setup easily. Another camping solution some might find cool.

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We just chilled that first night as we settled into our camp, got our grills set up and cooked up some steaks and fixins. It’s like we are professionals and have done this before?

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The next morning we enjoyed hanging out and doing a camp breakfast. The harder trails were calling some of our names but we thought better of it and did a family ride all together heading deeper into the Sangre De Cristos mountains (Blood of Christ). This is basically the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. Some folks don’t get that northern New Mexico is pretty nice in it’s own right…..and the trails don’t know which state they are in. But we hadn’t seen a Subaru, North Face geared up hikers, or dogs with booties on their feet, so we weren’t in Colorado.

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It was a big group ride of family and friends, 11 total. All kinds of bikes, five 500s of varying years, YZ250, KLX140, CRF150 and three Honda quads…my “Big” Red 250 and Gary’s Big Green 450 and his Big Banana 250 he snagged right before this trip.

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It was a good first day to get everyone acclimated to not only riding but also operating at 9K-11K feet for our lungs and our steeds. My son has always dealt with altitude sickness when he gets above about 5K. Strange how it is only him. We’ve learned to keep him super hydrated and get him over the counter meds a few days in advance. It mostly works. He was doing pretty good this trip. Some of the carb’d bikes were feeling sickly though, particularly the YZ.

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We ended up putting Grape on the YZ to deal with the finickiness and put Mrs. Grape on a Five Hundy. She had reservations but we told her she was wrong, the 5Hundo is the most incredible bike in the world. Why ping when you can thunder ha ha! I use to have a T-shirt that had that on it, probably 20 years or more ago. I wore it till it looked like a beat up old rag.

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Everyone was scratching their way up the mountain several thousand feet. Some drops and regrouping here and there, but we got it.

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We took a good long break here and enjoyed the view. We picked up that other folks we ran into call this Top of the World. Lot of places get that moniker. This is the Sangre De Cristo range….in 1719 Antonio Valverde Y Cosio named it after the red hue he saw during a snowy sunrise.

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Back down the other side of the mountain we went.

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We got to a point some wanted to go the couple miles back to camp and others pushed on for a couple more hours. I was just glad to be here and soaking it in with my people.

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Good day in the books. Something about a pine forest camp (sniff sniff) with temps in the 40s/50s in July (brr brr) while a creek babbles in the background (ahh, ahh). Take that you TWTers.
 
KsTeveM said:
The next morning we enjoyed hanging out and doing a camp breakfast. The harder trails were calling some of our names but we thought better of it and did a family ride all together heading deeper into the Sangre De Cristos mountains (Blood of Christ). This is basically the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. Some folks don’t get that northern New Mexico is pretty nice in it’s own right…..and the trails don’t know which state they are in. But we hadn’t seen a Subaru, North Face geared up hikers, or dogs with booties on their feet, so we weren’t in Colorado.

1721662822189.jpeg


1721662879859.jpeg


It was a big group ride of family and friends, 11 total. All kinds of bikes, five 500s of varying years, YZ250, KLX140, CRF150 and three Honda quads…my “Big” Red 250 and Gary’s Big Green 450 and his Big Banana 250 he snagged right before this trip.

1721662963447.jpeg


1721663030076.jpeg


It was a good first day to get everyone acclimated to not only riding but also operating at 9K-11K feet for our lungs and our steeds. My son has always dealt with altitude sickness when he gets above about 5K. Strange how it is only him. We’ve learned to keep him super hydrated and get him over the counter meds a few days in advance. It mostly works. He was doing pretty good this trip. Some of the carb’d bikes were feeling sickly though, particularly the YZ.

1721663134519.jpeg


1721663243565.jpeg


1721663550737.jpeg


1721663699258.jpeg


We ended up putting Grape on the YZ to deal with the finickiness and put Mrs. Grape on a Five Hundy. She had reservations but we told her she was wrong, the 5Hundo is the most incredible bike in the world. Why ping when you can thunder ha ha! I use to have a T-shirt that had that on it, probably 20 years or more ago. I wore it till it looked like a beat up old rag.

1721664454110.jpeg


Everyone was scratching their way up the mountain several thousand feet. Some drops and regrouping here and there, but we got it.

1721663886584.jpeg


1721664057845.jpeg


1721663932949.jpeg


1721664234476.jpeg


1721665014380.jpeg


We took a good long break here and enjoyed the view. We picked up that other folks we ran into call this Top of the World. Lot of places get that moniker. This is the Sangre De Cristo range….in 1719 Antonio Valverde Y Cosio named it after the red hue he saw during a snowy sunrise.

1721664558632.jpeg


1721664704255.jpeg


Back down the other side of the mountain we went.

1721664781841.jpeg


We got to a point some wanted to go the couple miles back to camp and others pushed on for a couple more hours. I was just glad to be here and soaking it in with my people.

1721664812341.jpeg


Good day in the books. Something about a pine forest camp (sniff sniff) with temps in the 40s/50s in July (brr brr) while a creek babbles in the background (ahh, ahh). Take that you TWTers.
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Nice. Very very very nice.
 
Staying really well hydrated and avoiding junk food and alcohol have always helped me avoid issues with the thin air, well... other than the fact that I am old, out of shape, and my heart wants to explode if I walk more than 30 feet in the thin air... but no sickeness! :thumb:
 
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