As always, I am open to suggestions and comments. Please EMAIL ME -- especially if you have roads you would suggest.
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THE ROAD TO PERDITION
My Riding Journal |
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With My Rosinante, Noel, I have traveled around
Texas, putting over 4,000 miles on her since November, 2002. This
is my riding journal. Hopefully you can get something from it, if nothing
else an interesting read. I will warn you that I am not much of a travel
writer -- I am mostly putting down what was important to me. As always, I am open to suggestions and comments. Please EMAIL ME -- especially if you have roads you would suggest. |
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"We have learned how to spot the good ones
on a map... If the line wiggles, that's good. That
means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town
to a city, that's bad.
"The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker ." - Robert M. Persig |
| Date |
Description |
| 10-20-03 |
First off, Big Thanks to Randy ACE and Mer (two
riders in Plano that I met via the Beginner Bikes New Rider Forum) - they
recommended this little route to me and it was a DREAM! We're in the Dallas MetroPlex, and there is a little town called Tioga - home of Gene Autry - northwest of here. In Tioga, there is also a nice little BBQ joint called Clark's BBQ Outpost there off of (Texas) State Highway 377, and it is a pretty nice destination in and of itself. This place was recently highlighted in the magazine, Ride Texas, as a good designation, but their route wasn't nearly as smooth, twisty or scenic as the one Randy and Mer recommend. Okay, onto the details. First, a small bit of background on me and why I took this ride this afternoon. My wife and I recently bought a house in August - and understand, every person has their 'end-all, be-all,' and for my wife, it was this house. Well, that was a challenge, but we met it and things were good. Until I got laid off mid-September. Needless to say, that sucked. So - I've been working to get interviews, etc., and had gotten two prime jobs lined up and hoping for offers. This morning, Job No. 1 calls and says, "Sorry Charlie." Pucker factor! Then, thirty minutes later, Job No. 2 calls and says, "We're gold!" At that point, what choice did I have but to go out and have a great ride? So after calling Laura and giving her the good news, I started prepping the bike for an afternoon in North Texas. As usual, I had gassed the bike at the end of my previous ride. Check. Tire pressure, check. Oil or fluids under the chassis? Nope. Lights, check. I was a bit anxious to hit the road, so with a promise that I would do it when I got back, I skipped the cleaning (BTW, the Honda cleaner is absolute GOLD to clean with...) Music? Got the Eric Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughn ready to go (yes, I only use one earpiece.) Gear up and go. (BTW, I will give the mileage in case anyone else wants to take this ride and wants that info to gague things. The mileage is the miles on my bike - I'd probably screw up the math trying to convert it to miles traveled - that subject was not my strong suit.) I live near Al Lamb's Honda on I-635 in Dallas, so I will give the mileage from there. Starting at 4293, going west on 635 to State Highway 75 north. At 4302, I exit for 15th Street in Plano going east. This twists around a bit and turns into Farm to Market 544. So far, all of this is highway riding, no real sex appeal so far. Things open up soon on 544 - at this point it is a six-lane road with limited signals. I get to Wylie at 4311, and turn into the Wylie HS parking lot to jot down a few notes (you think I could remember the mileage? Ha!) before taking the turn from FM 544 to FM 1378 headed north. (Randy, Mer, this is the addendum I mentioned.) FM 1378 goes between Wylie and Fairview, Texas - is a short little run of a two-lane road with only one stop sign and lots of 30 mph turns. The only negative is that since it is still near some towns, there is some traffic even though we're riding on a Monday afternoon. But the positives.... Not only is it rolling right and left, it is rolling up and down - something that doesn't happen as much in the later parts of this treck. At 4318, you hit the only stop sign on 1378, and it is a hard right. After this stop sign, though, the road gets even twistier. The bliss ends at 4325. Here, 1378 Ts into SH 5. I turned north to McKinney - this is part of the backside of McKinney and is a nice windy road through town. You pass SH 380 (which is a good road to other roads, if you know what I mean) before getting to the beginning of the treck Randy and Mer recommend, FM 543, at mile 4331. That road goes west, and is twisty right off the bat. Here is where you have a longer stretch of road, with the same twists as 1378, with less traffic and somewhat less up and down. Only 40 miles into a 139 mile treck, and already I can't get the smile off my face. Let me take a moment to describe the landscape here. You are mostly surrounded by farms and ranch houses, most of them with American and Texas flags flying in the front yard. Lots of cattle land (this IS Texas, remember) - which is a reminder to me to keep it under control since I don't know where I will come across a loose cow wandering the road (luckily, it is later on, and not too much of an issue.) At mile 4336, I came across the first of four or five turns in the course of the treck that are VERY misleading. With the roads so hilly, sometimes the turn happens on the other side of a hill, and the turn is combined with another road that it parallel to the original road before the turn. In other words, the signs say there is a 30 mph turn, but if you are just looking at the road, it looks like there is a hill and the road goes on straight. Needless to say, watch out for these because the hill of the turn would NOT be fun to hit at, say, 60 mph. Around 4340, you get to Weston - a small little town where you hook up with FM 455. Beware, there are two 10 mph turns that are no *s* 10 mph turns - and at this point in the town, you probably don't want to be doing more than 20 anyway. It came across as a sleepy little town where you REALLY don't want to mess with the local blues. FM 455 is very similar to 543. At mile 4348, there is another misleading turn, then at 4349, you get to SH 289 and Celina. *NOTE* Cross traffic DOES NOT STOP! I was so into the ride that I caught myself expecting the other traffic to stop after I stopped and was surprised when they didn't. Nice little, "Hello, pay attention" hint, huh? FM 455 continues well after Celina although around 4358, the road quality drops considerably. Before this, it was smooth asphalt - no real surface issues, good camber, markings matched the turns pretty accurately. At 4358, though, the road conditions change for the worse. Not terrible, but poor enough that I paid more attention to the road until I got to Pilot Point at mile 4363. A short stretch, but I figured I would mention it. At Pilot Point, you turn north on SH 377. There is a big gas station right at that intersection, and if you had been riding long enough to need gas, this would be a good place, especially if you have a number of bikes along. SH 377 is also a two-laner, but not much in the way of curves, twists or ups-and-downs. At this point, you are maybe five miles from Clark's. About two miles down the road, I notice a bike on the side of the road. I've had a good day, no reason not to share the karma (and maybe pick up some more), so I pull up next to him and ask if everything is alright. Turns out he got a cell phone call he had to answer. I said, "Glad that's all it was. Where are you headed?" The guy is riding a GL 1100 (early version of the Honda Gold Wing.) Short-sleved shirt, 3/4 helmet, glasses, jeans, tennis shoes. About ten years older than me (I'm 32.) He said, "Nowhere special." I told him about Clark's and said he could join me if he wants. He's up for it. So we head off. Tioga starts like many small towns, with a business or two, then a few more before steady shops of different sorts. Clark's is easy to miss (at least, it was for me) if you haven't been there before - it is about a mile into town. It was easy, though, to turn around as I just turned right onto a side street, took another right to go back south to the road that runs perpendicular to 377 and Clark's. Mile 4368. Clark's is your traditional small town Texas BBQ spot. I got the beef and sausage combo with a baked potato with all the fixings and a Pepsi. Good food. Jack got a tea. We chatted about his work (he runs a equipment rental place in the MetroPlex), the weather (it has been absolutely beautiful here of late), our bikes (more his than mine - more history there) and lamented the fact that we usually didn't have the time to ride like this. After lunch, he headed south and I headed north as I wanted to take the route the Ride Texas magazine recommended. This was to take 121 east to Van Alstyne. Not much to tell here, other than it is a better quality road than the FMs, a little more languid but in some ways the perfect after-meal ride since it isn't as twisty and challenging. There are still some good turns, but it isn't one right after the other. It was 11 miles to another small town, Gunter, which got me to mile 4379 and has a pretty raunchy railroad crossing (rotted wood, uneven rails). [The other railroad crossings were pretty non-descript.] The last 11 miles to Van Alstyne was much of the same, except at some point (didn't look at the mileage), I came across some cattle grazing near the fence along the road - with one of the cows on the wrong side of the fence! Luckily it was grazing and not paying attention to me, but there was a bit of a pucker factor for a moment there when I realized that the cow was on the wrong side of the fence. I got to SH 75 at 4391 and took 75 home (finished up at 4432). A better route would actually be to cross 75 to SH 5 and take that down - less traffic, more twists, etc., and you cold probably end up taking 1378 again... Unfortunately, I was rushing a bit to get home. Got back, gassed up the bike, cleaned it up, checked everything over again and put Noel up for the day. Pretty darn cool. BTW, Randy and Mer got this ride from the following website: http://www.geocities.com/nostalgia_diner/rides.html It appears to be old - last updated in 2000 - but the information seems to still be accurate. If the other rides are as good as this one... I did the ride to Wendy's Catfish Restaurant with a group of Valkyries three weeks ago, and while it isn't as good as this ride, it is still a nice little trip. |
| 10-4-03 |
Riding with the Valkyries! I rode with the D/FW Valkyrie MC today, going up Texas 78 to Bonham, up into Oklahoma for a quick lunch and back. Ten different machines - with mine and a Honda VTX 1800 as the only two non-Valk bikes on the trip. Thanks to Jimmy, Gary, Gregg, Jane, Bob and everyone else on the trip! We left at 9 a.m. from Al Lamb's Honda in Dallas on 635 and met up with a few more riders at a gas station in Rockwall, then took off for Bonham. It was a good challenge for a young rider like myself as most of these folk had serious miles under their belt. I cannot describe the experience of being surrounded by those wonderful machines.... The sense of power was incredible. And these guys knew their machines - it was great just to be the fly on the wall and listen in on how they had tricked things out, what modifications worked, what didn't, what they looked at and decided against and why. Invaluable. But the best feeling was on the road, with nine other bikes, every one of them a serious motorcycle. It was pretty darn cool. |
| 7-20/22-3 |
1150 miles in two and a half days. Oy! This was the IMC roadtrip to the Dallas Burn-Kansas City Wizards game at Arrowhead Stadium on 7-21-03. We left on Friday afternoon and rode up into Oklahoma. The original plan had us going through Arkansas, but weather forced us west. It was still a nice ride - did about four hours and ended up in Hugo, Oklahoma. Got up the next day and did the rest of the way to Kansas City - and aside from a few construction detours, it was a pretty smooth trip. Some nice twistys without getting too far off course. Props to Mike Daniel for doing the map-work. Unfortunately, this being the season from hell for the Burn, we lost 5-1, but we still had a good time with the KC folk and the rest of The Inferno that made the trip. One really cool thing - I usually bring drums to the games and play with the samba band in The Inferno during games, and since I couldn't take mine with me to KC on the bike, the car-folk had agreed to bring it with them. Well, unbeknownst to me until I got to the stadium, they forgot them in Dallas. But, being really cool people and good friends, they went ahead and dropped into a music store and got another drum for me - just for this game! (Of course, now they have another drum in case other people join us at games and want to play too - so it wasn't JUST for me - but it was pretty cool that they would drop $50 for me. THANKS!) The ride back was tough - the whole way on one day, ouch. I will admit, I wasn't ready to rush out and hit the road right away after that day. It was a good experience, though, and one I intend on repeating (although maybe spread out among a few more days....) |
| 5-23-03 |
I just got the bug after dinner, got the green
light from Laura, and off I went. Mike had suggested Texas Highway
5 north of McKinney, and I ended up taking it to Van Alystine, 120 miles
or so round trip. Since it was 10:30 before I got going, the roads were pretty deserted, which was great. The main problem was getting to it -- 75 to McKinney is pretty standard stuff with no real flash. If anyone has a better way to get to that point, I am all ears! Highway 5 is a two lane road that winds just a little bit around here and there. It isn't a real wiggly thing, not a lot of elevation change, but this is North Texas -- what do you expect? All in all, it was a very peaceful ride -- just what I needed at the end of a busy week and at the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend. |
| 5-8-03 |
What a trip! With the USA-Mexico match set
for Reliant Stadium in Houston, we left that morning. While there
was a bit of wind -- and the windshield I had not yet installed would have
come in handy -- it was also a good, smooth ride. It was a beautiful,
clear day that was not too warm to wear the full gear (except when stuck
in Houston traffic -- which we did because of a monster of a wreck just
outside the Houston city limits!) As I was more concerned with making the game and not ready to have the possible snafus related to back-roads, we took I-45 the whole way. Next time, we will plan ahead some more and get that un-straightened out, if ya' know what I mean. ;-) The game was AWESOME! If you haven't seen it before, here is my match report for Sam's Army. The trip back on Friday was pretty cool, as well. On the way down, I paced myself -- only doing an hour at a time. Since I had not made a five hour treck before, I figured that was the smart way to go. On the way back, though, I was able to stretch it out a bit, eventually doing two hours in the last go. The fact that the wind was behind me instead of in my face made it all the easier. Here is hoping Hosuton gets more USA matches, and hopefully an MLS or WUSA side for another excuse to travel down that way again. |
| 4-12-03 |
This was the first 'official' IMC ride, and it was
awesome! Opening Day for the Burn at Dragon Stadium, a beautiful
day in North Texas -- perfect all around. We started off by taking
a quick trip to Sherman, Texas, to stretch out the legs. Sherman
is about an hour north of Dallas, and a pretty straight, easy stretch of
highway riding. Nothing real fancy, just a two-hour jog to get our
legs underneath us. We took Texas Highway 75 up and back. My
friend from the MSF A+ Rider Course, Dan Askins, joined us on his 2003 Suzuki
Intruder. Then it was on to Dragon Stadium for Dallas-Los Angeles. With it being opening day, we took it pretty simple, taking major highways most of the way, including I635. We got there about 2:00 for a 3:00 game, which got us there before significant traffic issues arose (avoiding being stuck in traffic on a hot Texas afternoon!) and allowed us to mix and mingle with The Inferno SC and other fans at the game. Then we enjoyed the usual revelry of being in The Inferno -- drums, chants, confetti, yelling at the ref, etc. -- with 9,000 of our closest friends. Afterwards, we went to a wonderful hole in the wall, aptly named La Taquaria el Campeon, for some post-game grub. After seven hours either in the saddle or in the stands, it was a welcome meal. The trip to Sherman and back was about 130 miles, round trip. It was about 60 miles round trip from Dallas to Dragon Stadium. At some point, we will start to look at different ways to get our to the Dragon's Lair. As always, suggestions are welcome! |
| General |
I usually ride to the rec soccer games I play in
- mostly a 15-20 jog to one of the suburbs. More than anything else
I have tried, it gets me in the right frame of mind - always aware, seeing
everything, finding the flow of the traffic. Good stuff. |
