I'd like to get out and ride my KLX on Friday. I was thinking of going up into TN and wandering around some but if someone has a better idea I'd be up for that as well.
EDIT. After some discussion here is the plan:
Meeting place: Shell, 26804 Main St, Ardmore, AL 35739
Time, Meet: 0730
KSU: 0800
Pack something for lunch as we may or may not stop someplace to eat.
@thinwater will be leading the ride. This will be an exploration route so we don't know for sure what its like. I would expect a mix of paved and gravel roads. No single track or anything really challenging.
What area in tn are you going to or would you be willing to show some noobs wheeler?
I'm liking it, but I can't commit for sure to a particular time and day until I see what the children situation and schedule is for the weekend. I wan't to semi explore and semi hit some stuff I know is near where I want to explore if nothing else.
I'm off friday and my WR needs to get out and go vroom.
Are you going to be sticking to pavement or planning more dirt?
WR is set up for dirt and is barely street legal. ;)
I may pass if mostly pavement.
I would like to leave Ardmore explore a road near Bunker Hill TN continue, connect to one above Delina that I've been told about, then explore the Campbells Station area (knowing that the restaurant is closed), work my way back south via West of Pulaski hitting some stuff I know West of minor hill to also explore a potential road I've never been on Mockerson Rd west of Mt Zion church 6-7 ish miles, angle back to Lester Alabama to hit some of that stuff Sweeper and Klaviator hit with me once upon a time and cut off run near Downtown Elkmont. That is my personal wishlist for the weekend I'm just saying it. I don't know for sure when I'd do it Friday or Saturday but that is my personal wishlist.
If it sounds good to you....WE can do it. Or I might just follow you on your ride and work in my wishlist later.
Just throwing it out there to try and develop the weekend. My explore road wishlist could be epic, could be blah, don't know...never been there. That's kinda why I NEED to go, gotsta know. My explore would take up a long day of riding, that a lot of people might not be willing to bite off, but could bail out wherever.
Quote from: thinwater on July 01, 2020, 12:42:11 PM
I would like to leave Ardmore explore a road near Bunker Hill TN continue, connect to one above Delina that I've been told about, then explore the Campbells Station area (knowing that the restaurant is closed), work my way back south via West of Pulaski hitting some stuff I know West of minor hill to also explore a potential road I've never been on Mockerson Rd west of Mt Zion church 6-7 ish miles, angle back to Lester Alabama to hit some of that stuff Sweeper and Klaviator hit with me once upon a time and cut off run near Downtown Elkmont. That is my personal wishlist for the weekend I'm just saying it. I don't know for sure when I'd do it Friday or Saturday but that is my personal wishlist.
If it sounds good to you....WE can do it. Or I might just follow you on your ride and work in my wishlist later.
Just throwing it out there to try and develop the weekend. My explore road wishlist could be epic, could be blah, don't know...never been there. That's kinda why I NEED to go, gotsta know. My explore would take up a long day of riding, that a lot of people might not be willing to bite off, but could bail out wherever.
That would work for me. I was thinking of exploring TN and those would be new roads for me. I would prefer to meet fairly early on Friday to beat some of the heat.
If I lead the ride there is no telling where we would end up. I don't think that most of the stuff in that area is that hard so newer dual sport riders or bigger adventure bikes should be fine.
Quote from: David DoubleEX on July 01, 2020, 12:22:41 PM
I'm off friday and my WR needs to get out and go vroom.
Are you going to be sticking to pavement or planning more dirt?
WR is set up for dirt and is barely street legal. ;)
I may pass if mostly pavement.
I think it will be a mix of dirt and pavement but I don't know how much of each because I don't know the route.
Quote from: terryrussell1 on July 01, 2020, 11:48:55 AM
What area in tn are you going to or would you be willing to show some noobs wheeler?
I'd like to go into TN on Friday. If that happens I'd consider a shorter ride in Wheeler on Saturday.
I'm in. Haven't ridden the CRF in too long. I'll just have to find a way to avoid the 45 miles on the interstate to get there and back.
So, I'm in Friday if you want to Co-wander in between some defined investigative Dualsport roads. Ya'll pick the time, can't get too early for me, but Sweeper is out a ways don't know when he can be there. I-65 will be near for the first half is someone wanted to bail.
Annnd, I'm out. :( I forgot something I have to do on Friday.
I'm have to help my wife with her horse. It has nothing to do with thinwater being "in". :D
I'd prefer to do this Friday but could do Saturday. Anyone else out there interested?
I'm off Friday, so I'm in. My DR needs some dirt.
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OK, how about we meet at the Shell station in Ardmore around 7:30 and plan on getting on the road at 8?
Next question, pack a lunch or find someplace to eat?
If this is too early for anyone thinking of coming, speak up now. Any other suggestions, make them now. I'll try to finalize things tomorrow morning.
I'm OK with bringing a lunch but I'm also OK with stopping somewhere for lunch. I'll go with the majority on that.
I'm good with the time and bringing a lunch.
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Sounds like some good riding. Can't go. In fact the AT will be parked all weekend as I need to drive up to the house for the weekend. Going to be working on the enclosed trailer conversion.
I'm good with the time.
I plan to pack a lunch, but if we find a place thats open, I'm not against hauling my lunch back home after eating out at an opportunity. I just don't want to depend on dine in not knowing what will be closed because of the holiday weekend.....Preparedness.
The plan:
Meeting place: Shell, 26804 Main St, Ardmore, AL 35739
Time, Meet: 0730
KSU: 0800
Pack something for lunch as we may or may not stop someplace to eat.
@thinwater will be leading the ride. This will be an exploration route so we don't know for sure what its like.
I'm in.
Ridin' my new bike.
I just found this group via the North AL DS group on Facebook. I'd like to find more DS riders around HSV. I've been on a 2009 KLX 250 for years and just added a 2012 BMW F800GS (it's in the shop this weekend). I'll watch this forum for future rides. How was the ride today? Any of y'all plan/track your routes on the free app, REVER (rever.co)?
Quote from: dooda on July 03, 2020, 03:16:20 PM
I just found this group via the North AL DS group on Facebook. I'd like to find more DS riders around HSV. I've been on a 2009 KLX 250 for years and just added a 2012 BMW F800GS (it's in the shop this weekend). I'll watch this forum for future rides. How was the ride today? Any of y'all plan/track your routes on the free app, REVER (rever.co)?
Welcome to the forum. You might want to introduce yourself in the new members section.
As for the ride today, I really enjoyed it although the plank they disguised as a seat on my new KLX was literally a PITA :D
My total mileage for the day was 240. I took a bunch of pics and I'll post some them in this thread as soon as I get the chance.
Wow! 240 was a pretty big day on a little bike.
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We had 7 riders show up in Ardmore this morning.
Some fine redneck engineering to make this CRF more comfortable.
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We got on the road around 8 and started with some country roads.
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We went through those same tunnels we did a couple of weeks ago but in the opposite direction.
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My only over the shoulder shot of the day.
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We were riding along and had to stop for a cow blocking the road. It eventually moved over and we rode by it.
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After we rode by I saw a herd of cattle stampeding alongside the left of the road. I wish i had gotten some pics of that.
We rode a lot of narrow, paved country roads.
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And some gravel roads.
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Stephen was leading the ride but had not ridden some of the roads. This was an exploratory ride. We got on a really noce gravel road that unfortunately came to a couple of gates. We took a break there a a couple walked up. They had a place back there and told us that the road used to go through but not any more.
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We got stuck behind a slow moving tractor on the way out.
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There was no doubt we were in farm country.
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While many of the roads were paved, they were often narrow, rough broken pavement and much better experienced on a dual sport of adventure bike.
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Stopping for a much needed break.
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Stephen told us this place has fantastic food and he will lead a ride someday that stops here for lunch. Unfortunately it was closed today.
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We rode into Lynnville hoping to find a place to eat lunch as well as a gas station. It turned out that Soda Pop Junction was open so we ate there.
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Besides having good food it's an interesting place.
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"Downtown" Lynnville.
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We stopped and checked out this old place.
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Mo riding.
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It's not a real dual sport ride until someone's bike takes a nap ;D
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Mo pics.
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One of many water crossings. By far not the best but I happened to be set up to take pics of this one.
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A couple of more pics.
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Thanks everyone for showing up. Stephen, thanks for leading the ride. It's always great riding some new roads.
It was fun, my curiosity mostly setteled on a few mystery roads. Enough was learned to do some educated precision investigating to make it all it can be later. That was a big ride report! I have a few days to go through a bunch of video, then I'll probably put the boiled down edit in the ride report section unless is should be here. Enjoyed it folks. I tried to break every hour to hour and a half depending on space and shade, too long or about right?
Awesome photos, Win!
That's one heck of an exploration ride. Looks like a good time. Thanks for sharing all of the pictures.
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Looks like a good ride. How many miles?
Quote from: rider_marc on July 04, 2020, 10:27:10 AM
Looks like a good ride. How many miles?
I rode 240 miles but around 70 of those miles were getting to and from the ride. Keep in mind that a good part of the route was set up to check out some new roads. We bypassed to known good roads to do that. There is a lot of good riding in the area but for those interested in hard core dirt with as little pavement as possible, this isn't the best area to ride. I enjoyed it because I bought a bike that is fun ON and OFF road. I really enjoy those paved "goat trails" that are common in the area. The best of the gravel/dirt riding was in E. Limestone county near the end of the ride.
I forgot to mention, because it has been so rainy, the dust wasn't bad. If it had been dry for a week it would have been nasty in places.
I had a good time and of what the cameras I had captured clearly, here is the boil down.
https://youtu.be/FUfyZNiu9sc
That's not "redneck" engineering,
that's Iron Butt engineering !! ;)
Thank you for the great ride.
Quote from: thinwater on July 05, 2020, 01:27:55 PM
I had a good time and of what the cameras I had captured clearly, here is the boil down.
https://youtu.be/FUfyZNiu9sc
Thanks for taking the time to edit and post this video. I know it had to be a lot of work.
Thanks for leading the ride as well.
I removed the old GPX file that takes you to a dead end with no fix to get to destination. I'm replacing it with this corrected one that avoids the dead end, in case people continue to find and download and run it.
Quote from: thinwater on July 09, 2020, 01:27:21 PM
I removed the old GPX file that takes you to a dead end with no fix to get to destination. I'm replacing it with this corrected one that avoids the dead end, in case people continue to find and download and run it.
That looks like a good one. Some familiar, some not. I think we're going to replicate it tomorrow. Thanks for sharing the gpx.
Quote from: kdtrull on July 10, 2020, 10:02:40 PM
That looks like a good one. Some familiar, some not. I think we're going to replicate it tomorrow. Thanks for sharing the gpx.
How did it go? There was a heavy rain through the area Wednesday, some of those small creek crossings could have been drastically different for you comparatively.
It was great. Never saw a drop of rain. The humidity was even lower that it had been in previous couple days. Saw more deer than expected during mid day. Got behind a batch of turkey hens on one of the skinny roads with thick woods. They're like buzzards, they tend to fly straight down the road.
We were out about 13 hours. I guess around 10 of those were actual moving hours. We followed the route, hit some other spots I wanted to show BamaPhill, and did a little bit of exploring along the way.
I checked the radar maybe twice Saturday. We were always north of any rain when I looked. It may have rained earlier in some areas. We found mud holes as deep as the creeks but they had good crunchy bottoms. No zip-n-splat.
13 hours!? We didn't burn it up and I think we did it in about 8hrs including the lunch stop. Sounds like fun to me.
That is premium country up there. Hope there's lots of days left to see more of it.
There's a nice waterfall just west of Buzzard Roost Rd. Ever seen it?
I know of one, assuming it is the same one yes. Recently roped off because people wouldn't quit driving their offroad vehicles across to it.
Probably the same one.