Madhatter wants a dirt bike….

[ballisticexchris]

WOWEE!! Excited for you and your riding buddy!! Safe travels and have fun Terry.

 

[Madhatter]

thanks my friend , wish you were joining us . first day will be brutal 420 miles in the heat . this trip after the first day will 300 to 350 miles max each day , so we can enjoy the ride and be flexible in what we are doing. my budget is 800.00 , we will see. 9 days is our estimated trip length ,possibly 10 if needed.

 

[Madhatter]

this is why cars rule . don't need a new helmet every 5 years (spent 500 on a new Simpson ) tires last longer (put new Shinko 705's on ( the original picked up a nail , bought a set of pierelly scorpions ,to noisy ) new battery , new sleeping bag (smaller ) .... and on the list goes to get ready ..... but if it was easy anyone would do it .

 

[Sierra1]

It rained today. . . . again. . . . it's 78 @ 9:45pm, with 84% humidity. Hopefully you can get into some of the drier air. May not be any cooler, but at least it will feel it. Have a safe trip.

 

[Madhatter]

thanks , will be posting on mad hatter wants a dirt bike when I can.

 

[Madhatter]

Got home today will start posting about the trip tomorrow.

 

[Madhatter]

good morning ....... I had my first sip of coffee ......
best part of a trip is not the going on but the getting home .....
so I get home ,kiss the wife ,take a shower , take my wife out to dinner . have an ass hat aggressive driver trying to dog my ass . really all those miles and days and no issues till I get home ..... people are crazy.
so left on a Tuesday returned on a Tuesday . 2379 miles drive way to drive way . the first day we left Buda at 7 am got to Caprock Canyon state park about 430 that afternoon , it was a hot ride (we all wore all our gear all the time on this trip ) but very little traffic and LEO's seemed to be none existent . (the whole trip we saw only a hand full of Cops , mostly Texas DPS , maybe 6 . New Mexico 2 . Colorado 1 .) we mostly observed the posted limits (passing large trucks was the exception) . Caprock canyon was a primitive site with no water . 10 hours on a bike with gear and no water . 99 degrees on bikes and gear and no water . y'all get my point .
set up our tents , cooked our meals , had a few beers (smuggled in as state parks have an issue with alcohol ) and I used the ice water to take a sponge bath (damn invigorating ) but not enough . no rain flys over the tents ,sleeping under the stars , had some of a breeze which made things bearable . interesting park , has a bison heard saved from extinction back in the Indian war days of our history . they wonder where they like and they are massive . so I've ridden my bike through a buffalo heard . didn't no it was on my bucket list but its marked off now.
on this trip we met so many cool people had great conversations with folks from all over , part of the trip I like most .

 

[Madhatter]

At the local stripes where we meet up

 

[Madhatter]

left to right in our group photo is Matt ( Sgt. Rock ) , Ken ( super man ) , Terry (known to all as Madhatter ) .
triumph tiger , Yamaha super tenere , Kawasaki Vers y 650 .

 

[Madhatter]

Middle of day one we stop for lunch

 

[Madhatter]

first posted pic is at my house (how did that get in there )
Anson Texas at the sonic . our carhop was Jade , she was very excited to wait on our crazy group (pretty boring in a very small town ) . interesting down town as the county court house sits in the middle of the highway . the highway or street splits and becomes one way on each side and is almost a traffic circle . sorry no picture .

 

[ballisticexchris]

I really like the fact you had a buddy with the Kawasaki 650. I had the 07 Ninja 650R and it was a solid touring bike. And the Triumph is cool too!! What a nice diversified group of bikes and riders!!

 

[Sierra1]

. . . . interesting down town as the county court house sits in the middle of the highway . the highway or street splits and becomes one way on each side and is almost a traffic circle . sorry no picture .

That's more common than one would think. The town I worked in, Cleburne was like that. The county courthouses in Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Weatherford too, just to name a few. I do know in Cleburne that "back in the day", the streets were two way, but as the town grew, they made everything one way around the square.

 

[ballisticexchris]

I do know in Cleburne that "back in the day", the streets were two way, but as the town grew, they made everything one way around the square.

That's a great highway feature I really like in both Texas and Oklahoma. The Square. And very unnerving at first are the freeway offramps. You just blaze off the ramp at speed and the traffic off of the freeway yields. The first few times I slowed down I had the locals honking at me.

Now I realize that the engineers of Texas and Oklahoma roads actually have an education and know what they are doing. As you are coming down the ramps your line of site on the surface streets is amazing.

 

[Madhatter]

Sitting at a road side rest stop , smiling and wondering.

 

[Sierra1]

. . . . Now I realize that the engineers of Texas and Oklahoma roads actually have an education and know what they are doing. As you are coming down the ramps your line of site on the surface streets is amazing.

I don't know. From what I remember of CA roads, they move more people on better road surfaces. And, the mountain roads. . . . wow. A lot of OK, at least in the southwest portion, is set up as a grid for the local roads.

 

[Madhatter]

so we rock GPS ,its Garmin V TomTom , I'm following superman , the road splits , he goes right ,my TomTom says go left. that's how we end up at the very nice Texas roadside rest area. superman low gas light has been on awhile and no gas station anywhere to be found. thankfully smart phones are in our hands and it suggest we travel another 8 miles and we will find a gas station . we do . it is an unattended gas station . that means no one works there . its just pumps no building or soda machines or any amenities what soever . we fill his bike ,he had 3 tenths of a gallon in his tank . 4.7 to fill . that big horse power triumph has no legs . the only bike that out mpg the Tenere is the 650 versy. crisis averted we continue on to capock canyon state park.

 

[Madhatter]

superman was smiling , inside he was concerned.

 

[Madhatter]

Caprock canyon state park. Where the buffaloes still roam . They have the right of way .

 

[Madhatter]

some of the parks shut the gates at a certain time , not here , their guards are always around .