Fall Road Trip Day 4

    Well, it seems like this road trip is a journey through my playlist also.  My garmin is on crack and it tends to play groups of songs over and over on shuffle.  It is still starting out with Crystal Method....same damn song.  Today was a journey through Frank Zappa, Neil Diamond, Queen Annes Lace, and Lady Gaga.  First let me say that when corrupted by road noise the song sounds like "Donna Noble, Patch in....Patch in."  Now I will have to Netflix Dr. Who tonight to reset my brain.  Frank Zappa while riding is just odd....The strange noises that he tends to use are very disturbing on motorcycles.  Lady Gaga.....where do I start?  When "Bad Romance" came on, I noticed that people were giving me lots of room and staring.....a whole lot.  Lesson learned, no dancing on the bike at 80mph......just say no....

    This has turned out to be a good scouting run.  I have found lots of places that I really want to bring everyone back to.  It is just freakin gorgeous up here.  I am finding it to be a bit lonely though.  it is a very stark reminder of just how Austin is.  I have run across no Friends of Dorothy.  I saw a few, but they would not make eye contact.  No stickers on cars, nothing. 

    I got a lot more thinking done today.  I still have no idea what I thought about, but I feel better, calmer, and lighter.  That means the trip is working.  There were a lot of wrong turns today, I mean a whole lot.  I only did 260 or so "map" miles, but there were a good 40 or so of wrong turns.  Pretty much all there was to do was to let go of it and roll.  I knew where the interstate was, and that it would take me to the hotel.  It was really a matter of not getting to go a couple places because I missed the turns and there was no clean way to get back.  I found some other real interesting places though.  There is no way to really get a picture of them, but there are two steel bridges, one across the Mississippi river, and then you take a right and you go across the Ohio river.  The spans are just over 1.9 lanes wide, and about 3/4 mile long each.  It was pretty awesome riding up and back down those big steel cages.  This brought me around to the idea that people would be happier if they could grasp the idea that there are no "Wrong Turns", just the other way of getting there.....sometimes with better scenery.

    Rumor has it that Memphis has a Starbucks.  I don't really care if I get coffee, I just want to speak to someone who is moderately intelligent, and not a backwoods conservative for about 5 min.....I will evwn buy a coffee as the price of admission.


I promised some video, here it is, but before the whiners start complaining that I crossed the double yellow, the camera is hanging off the left side of my tank.

Here goes:








And here is my route for the day:



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Enjoy,

Dave

A couple quick clips from the weekend....

I will post a more complete entry whenever I get back in town.  Until then, here are a couple clips with the new camera:

Me on FM337:



Kel on TX16 (me chasing):



TTFN

Dave

Why not run....Day 5

Made it home alive. Was kind of beat so I waited till today to update. This was a good run. This was the first time I took off for a run before I hit the absolute need to get the hell out of town. It was different riding without all of the peripheral poo that I normally sort through while I ride. I could actually just enjoy the scenery the whole time. It was actually kind of relaxing.

The ride back from San Angelo was fun. Since it was a short day, I kind of mixed it up a bit and took a couple alternate routes. Instead of staying on 29 all the way back to Austin, I went ahead and took the TX 71 loop from Brady to Llano. Then I took the right on 1431 and took the back way into Austin. I actually got the camera working so I got some video of the ride from Marble Falls. I never realized just how much of a lean I actually get on that bike. When I am riding, my head actually moves to keep the horizon more or less level. With the camera mounted directly to the bike, it is very pronounced. When I got back, I actually sat and watched it all the way through. The whole video is about 40 min, I went ahead and cut it down to about 5 min or so.

Here is the video:



Here is the route I ended up coming back:


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TTFN

Dave

Why not run.....Day 4

The run out of Alpine was kind of nice this morning. It was real damn cold though. When I left this morning, it was about 30 and it did not warm up until I got into San Angelo at 1:30. I had every piece of thermal gear on that I brought. AND I WAS STILL COLD! I managed to make the whole run in 2 stops, Ft. Stockton and Big Lake.

I don't know exactly what the problem is, but my starter has stopped working. It looks like I will be on the kick-starter for a while, at least until I get home and figure out what is going on. I have a feeling it is the cold jamming up the starter relay, or the switch got dirty. When I hit the button, there is no draw on the lights. That makes me think it is not the battery.

As far as the ride goes, the scenery is pretty, there is a very pretty desolation out here with the mountains and the mesas in the background. The loop that I made up through the davis mountains kind of rocked. The elevation is only about 6000ft, but it started making the bike run funny and use more gas than I am used to. Had a bit of a thought I was gonna run out of gas scare up in the mountains. Now I know that I can go right at 160 miles before hitting my reserve. I also discovered that I have right at 1.5 gallons of reserve. I ended up putting about 4 gallons of gas in my 5.8 gallon tank. All things considered, I really was not in danger of running out of gas. That is just the first time I have hit reserve in the middle of the desrt. about a mile after I hit reserve, I saw a sign that said I had 10 miles to go to Ft Davis. That was the most desolate 10 miles I have ever ridden in my life. When you hit reserve, you become very aware of how barren the landscape is........

On the whole, I have to say that this run has been work. Lots of work. Between the cold and the long stretches of straight empty highways, it has been eating my brain away very slowly. I am having a great deal of fun, but it has been an exercise in endurance. The days have not been very long, but they have not been easy miles, especially on the Ural. I am glad I am on it due to the whole kick starter availability, but the speed limit is around 75 to 80 the whole way. That beast is a beating at those speeds. In the summer or spring, I really want to do this run again with the R90. That will be a whole bucket of go-fast.

Here is the shot I got from the top of the mountain:



I managed to get the camera working on the way out of Alpine this morning. The angle really sucks due to the key cover on the headlight, but it is not as bad as it could be. The sound is horrid. Now I know why people put sound tracks on their videos. Since the road is pretty much straight, there is not much variation. The road is also kind of bumpy so there is an odd vibration. I don't know if I could sit and watch the video all the way through, but it is kind of interesting just in terms of scenery. I cut some of the interesting scenes together and put them up. Just kill the sound unless you find the sound of a riding lawnmower exciting.



I am going to try to get some more video on the way home tomorrow, and that will clear up the key cover a bit (no promises though). I only got a couple of pictures from the top of the Davis Mountains, here is a pretty good one.

Here is today's route:



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Oh well, time for sleeping.

TTFN

Dave