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The Road To Texasmac


HispanicSlammer

2,911 views

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Talimena Skyway

The road to Texasmac 2008 - the first installment

I took off a couple of weeks from work to do this and it about killed me this winter thinking about it. I was able to ride some here is Colorado but not nearly as carefree as in Appalachia where the roads are cleaner and the weather is not so vicious. I left on a Sunday for my first day, some 550 miles of superslab across south eastern Colorado and into the Oklahoma Panhandle.

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It was cold as usual, with a biting wind that took all the warmth out of my body as soon as it hit me, coming out of a shallow canyon, or passing a truck. I headed east on hwy 50 along the Arkansas river not stopping for gas until the thing was running on fumes.

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The Arkansas River Still in Colorado on hwy 50

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Arkansas River

I was expecting nothing but flat brown Comanche National Grasslands heading south out of Rocky Ford toward Oklahoma but I was pleasantly surprised to find some nice bluffs near a place called Higbee Colorado and some welcome curves to keep me occupied for a short while. It did not last.

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Higbee Colorado

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I took some lunch at a Dairy Queen in Boise City OK, I was surprised to see entire families sitting down for a meal from the local DQ as if they had just come from Church - probably so. Well dressed for the most part and 4 generations strong to a booth. I did not linger as I could tell I was tolerated but not exactly welcome with my wild motorcycle outfit on. Now I had some dull drone to do to get across the panhandle for some 200 miles. It was all I could do to keep the thing strait since there were cops in odd places with radar blaring, no exactly hidden well since I could hear it for miles before I finally saw the car off in the grass some 5 miles down the road. Jebus who cares out here??? Only to find a town hidden in a sunken area not visible from the highlands, if not for the few trees I would have passed it at 70mph but the radar advertised its existence well enough!

It was like a 12 hour shift at work really - something to be endured - and that is what I did, not that it was difficult riding, I played my entire audio book of "the hobbit" something I thought I would enjoy instead of music - it passed the time well. Finally I rounded a bend and I was out of the panhandle, there were trees and green grasses and it looked like a place where people would live! No more endless rows of telephone lines. I looked down to see the town of Woodward coming up and I realized my bike was about to click over 100,000 miles on the clock I had to stop and record this great milestone in my riding career!

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100k in Woodward Oklahoma a huge milestone

A few more hours and I was trying to Call GSwanson on the phone to see where to meet but I could not connect cause of some strange Oklahoma roaming rules on my cell phone, I had his address programmed into my Zumo and so I just clicked go and I was soon riding on one helluva bumpy road out in the sticks to his place. I turned up what looked like a country road to nowhere and there he was outside waving at me, I was sitting on my bike trying to call him when I got a hold of his wife, at the same time I saw him waving at me.

Gary is a great guy and his family are some wonderful people - they took me out to Cattlemans restaurant where I met their daughter and her husband for dinner. They have a busy little toddler who keeps them rather busy a very pretty young woman who has her mothers face. I don't think there are any ugly women in Oklahoma City?? We talked about Mini Racing and how much Gary's son had grown in less than a year, now a full 6 inches taller than me now! Gary says you can get a cart for 8 grand and be racing - almost like racing dirtbikes, they use carberated R6 motors.

Gary got me up early and we where off to Seminole OK to meet VFRErnie - who I forgot had provided me with a clutch cover by mail the year before. I sent him the one I ordered a month later when it arrived. OH yea Geeze how could I forget that?? what a dolt! I cant keep my own families names strait either. We met Ernie at the Brahms in Seminole and headed for the Talimena Skyway, some 150 miles away, some more slab, with a few curves thrown in for good measure, but there were some slow poke cages in the way. It did not get interesting till we were on the skyway!

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Gswason and vfrErnie meet at the Brahms parking lot in Seminole OK

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Three 5th generation vfrs on the Talimena Skyway

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Ernie cant believe the good weather

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Talimena Skyway

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Talimena Skyway we met the others shortly after stopping here

Gary said he saw Rapidsnipe on his vfr riding with another group that day - we passed him on the Talimena, I saw the vfr but did not know it was him. we did however run into Dutch, Tightwad and MTX73 later on the other side. Together we had a big group of 6 riders for a while till we stopped for lunch in Mena, Ernie turned back to go home there, he had lost his glasses on the skyway at the last stop and went back to retrieve them. The rest of us headed for Magazine Mountain with Dutch in the lead, with the smell of chicken shit everywhere - guess its a big chicken raising area, lots of big coops where all over the place, when we finally were on the road to Magazine mountain some redneck pulling a trailer full of metal barrels was crowding the narrow road and going much too fast for the conditions, he held dutch and I off for at least a quarter of the way?? Idiot - I hate it when people do that - go fast cause they see motorcycles in the mirror - just drive like you normally do and don't worry about it!!!!

The two of us got around him but the others were stuck, we took off for the top and enjoyed some curves!

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Mount Magazine

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Gswanson Tightwad and Mtx73 stop for a break on top of Mount Magazine

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Top Of Mount Magazine

Then we headed for Russleville and stayed the night, Mike was not feeling good and decided to end the trip right there, he headed home the next morning, mentioning that he was not used to the kind of miles we where doing and he was making some dangerous mistakes. We did not argue - but we all though all he needed was some sleep, but in the morning he was headed back to Texas?? OK buddy be safe!!

Gary was still with us, tightwad, dutch and I and we headed up hwy 7 to Jasper where Gary was heading home! Tightwad was heading to Nashville then he also was going home? Lots of partway guys on this trip! It was nice having tightwad along since he could keep up with Dutch and I at a our normal pace for the most part. I have ridden with Dutch a few times and we are on par for good pace. Tightwad took a half day but he was soon right along side!

We had a scare cause Tightwads voltmeter was showing that he was overcooking the battery, but my voltmeter showed it to be fine, later his voltmeter stopped working all together. Typical long trip stuff! Nothing every works the way you want it to!

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Gswanson Tightwad and Dutchinterceptor we pulled off to let a park ranger get on ahead

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Lunch in Marshall AR

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The Lake at Norfolk Damn the water is high

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Norfork Damn

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Beaverdamn Road TN

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Dutch and Tightwad take pictures

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Gotta Love a sign like that

We crossed the big Mississippi river at Dyersburg and bedded down at the Days Inn. then we took some crazy back roads I mixed in with some suggested roads Baileyrock gave me, passing by some weird army ordinance base, and some crazy hilly roads and into the Natchez Trace State park for what seemed like roads no wider than a sidewalk, it was challenging but fun, thank goodness no cars where coming the other way since we where using the entire road!

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Centerville hometown of Minne Pearl

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Brees Café in Centerville TN add this one to the greasy spoon archive good stuff

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HEH

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Tottys Bend TN

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Pucketts Leipers Fork TN

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The Lawnchair theater next door to Pucketts

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The Road to Tmac ends the first leg at Baileyrocks Place

I called Baileyrock from Brees diner in Centerville and told him we where 2 hours away (accurate) but it was less than 60 miles as the crow flies, what a great day of riding!

The Video

Map of the Mount Judea road

Full Size

:media: Mount Judea Video High Resolution this video is in wmv format and runs for about 5 minutes - hwy 123 in Arkansas with Dutchinterceptor leading me in the middle and Tightwad sweeper - I borrowed some of Tightwads footage to complete the video with 3 cameras. Music by Coldplay

so ends the first leg on the road to Texasmac at the Home of Baileyrock in Nashville

17 Comments


Recommended Comments

  • Member Contributer

The bad news is I didn't find the glasses. The good news is I had to ride the Skyway in the opposite direction. What a blast, and it was great to meet HS and the Texas boys for the first time, and good to see Gary again. We are old dirt bike buddies, right Gary? I left my house that morning at 7:00 to meet HS and Gary. It was 42 degrees then, up to about 85 or so by afternoon then down to 66 or so by the time I got back home, 13hrs and 558 miles later. It was a great day. Wish I could have gone on with the rest of you. Maybe next year. Great writeup and video Miguel. Have you got the electrical gremlins straightened out?

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  • Member Contributer

Great ride and video, thanks a lot!

Nice road - good surface and almost empty, a pleasure to ride! :)

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  • Forum CEO
You should be ashamed of yourself violating Minnie like that!!! :laugh:

where-bouts? where-bouts? I once went to rolling thunder, spent 4 hours on my hog and went 2 blocks!! (excerpts from the old fart motorcycle brigade Centerville TN)

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Good stuff as usual, I'm pretty sure I've run 123 myself at teh Pig Chasing Rallie in 04. Fun roads up there! :fing02:

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This was my first experience riding anything twisty, and it was a blast!!! I was grateful to HS and Dutch for making sure I was comfortable with the speed. My camera is not that great, but it did surprisingly well considering, HS did a great job of mixing the footage....and thanks for taking out the part where I blow my line and end up 1/2 way into the other lane!

123 is a great technical road...at one point I thought maybe we were riding trials. I liked the increasing and decreasing radius's, although they can be a bit scary.

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Guest 06VFR

Posted

Awesome...I must say I'm jealous. How do you guys do it? I'm married with 2 kids and one more on the way.

Maybe when they get a bit older and the wife could get a better handle on them :laugh:

Great write-up and video Miguel. :fing02:

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  • Member Contributer
Miguel,

What video camera are you using? MiniDV, HDD or ?

I was going to ask the same thing, the quality is really good.

Nice write-up and great pictures! :fing02:

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Awesome...I must say I'm jealous. How do you guys do it? I'm married with 2 kids and one more on the way.

Maybe when they get a bit older and the wife could get a better handle on them :laugh:

Great write-up and video Miguel. :fing02:

I have 3.77 kids at the moment....it wasn't easy to break away. Luckily my wife is understanding of my insanity, but the kids is why I had to turn back at Nashville, rather than going on the TMAC.

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Guest mgtx73

Posted

Good write up. Yes, I did head back to Texas. Made it home safe. It's tough to admit you are not able to continue on. It was a hard decision but a good one for me and I don't regret it. I was working harder than enjoying myself and did not see it getting any better. I appreciate your guys understanding.

It was good to see HS and Dutch again and it was good to meet the rest of the guys. If nothing else I was able to test my Sargent, GPS (found Tightwad in Dallas this way), ER6i's with the iPod and the Vista Cruise (what a simple but great invention).

Keep it coming.

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Guest ST3V0

Posted

great Vid guys thanx for sharing.

looks a good fast pace too, must be nice to have such nice roads unlike the crap ones over here in UK

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  • Member Contributer
Awesome...I must say I'm jealous. How do you guys do it? I'm married with 2 kids and one more on the way.

Maybe when they get a bit older and the wife could get a better handle on them

They don't sell duct tape in Queens?

Ah, just kidding. Enjoy them while they are small, cause it'll all be done in the blink of an eye...

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  • Member Contributer

Many thanks for sharing that you went over 100K on your bike. I have closely followed your mileage progress and it is great you made that milestone.

Your bike sure does not sit parked in a garage all the time. I love seeing bikes that get a lot of use and are not garage queens.

I am at 59K on my 2000 and trying to catch up...

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Guest blythe

Posted

Thank you for the fine entertainment. I really do need to take a trip of my own!

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