Final 2011 Two Wheeled Texans Pie Run 12/31/2011

[hemibee]

We had a little gathering of riders from Two Wheeled Texans in Crockett, Texas today for the forums last Pie Run of 2011. I'm still compiling the ride report and getting the photos ready to upload but thought I would get this ride report started with a couple map links of the ride.

I'm still in a fog over the ride, more info on that to come (or read the ride report from BwanaDik I stole from Two Wheeled Texans) but here is the links...

Ride from Conroe to The Moosehead Cafe in Crockett, Texas

Ride home from Crockett to Willis, Texas

I will say this, don't ever let anyone tell you a FJR riding 2 up is not a dirt machine... :y148:



I'll add the my ride report as soon as I can get it, but here's the ride report from the 2 up FJR rider...

Jackie and I had an outstanding time today! Thanks to all!

The day began when we found this disreputable mob lurking about at the Exxon station at I-45 and FM 3083

{I've identified the riders above... Dave, Ed, James, Tim, the other Tony & Black Betty's rear-end}

Rumor had it that they are all from the Conroe/Montgomery area, and you know what THOSE people are like!

Taking our life into our hands we set out with the crew

Action photo

Things improved slightly as we progressed further North.

It never really warmed up past about 63 so it was a "refreshing" ride to Crockett.

I'll let others post pictures of the NOT-pie! Although the rest of the food was excellent!

When we left, it had cleared up nicely. Excellent ride home over both new and familiar roads. Great trip, glad to have met a bunch of new friends!

Edit: Now I know what this meant. We routed down a dirt CO road for a while.

Originally Posted by Hemibee
The more the merrier.

I'll work up a route, y'all got any suggestions? Anyone want a couple sandy roads? Sorry, couldn't resist...

Tony: "Oh, I don't know, it looks like we're almost there"

Me: "Yea, right, and I'm pushing a 700# pig with street tires. Let's go!" No drama but it way could have been. No "action" photos as I was a little busy. Can I get an ADVRider sticker for my Feej? Great run!

The red comments above were from my answer to BwanaDik saying they would like to join our ride... The sandy roads comment I made was at another rider (Harley Rider) that was lead down a country road that turned to a dirt road and then a deep sandy road. We give him a hard time about his sandy adventure. Now I guess we can add BwanaDik to the inside joke.

 

[hemibee]

Crockett, Texas

The time had arrived for the final Pie Run of 2011 and we were headed back to one of our (TWT's) favorite locations, The Moosehead Cafe in Crockett, Texas. This is the third year we have ended the year at The Moosehead and each year the weather has been pretty crappy in the days leading up to each each of the first two. This year was no different, rains early in the week and coastal fogs rolling into the area. We weren't too worried about the fog because Crockett sits far enough north not to be effected by the coastal fogs and it hasn't been too bad for most of us closer to the coast. The fogs have been lifting each morning around 0800 and should be no problem for us.

Well the morning of the ride was to see the weather change again, for the worse I'm afraid. It didn't look too bad as I left the house but was soon to change. I could tell the fog was lifting, or so I thought, and wasn't too bad at the house. Then I dropped off the hill the house sits on and I rolled into a fog bank so thick I would swear I felt the wall when Black Betty hit it, a near solid wall of fog. Because the sun had appeared to be making it's appearance I had the tinted visor on my helmet, big mistake! I had gone only a few feet into the fog bank and could not see. I moved out of the trees and into an open area and I couldn't believe how much thicker the fog was.

Made it to the meet up location and started changing the visor. This would prove to be a better visor but not by much. My gloves became soaked from the fog and having to clear off my visor so I could see.

We waited around the meeting spot for an extra 30 minutes to give the fog a chance to lift but it did not appear to be getting lighter. I had called one of the marinas on Lake Livingston to see what the weather was like in the area, they reported visibility of 0 which was going to make us have to resort to the back up route. What the girl actually said was “you can’t see the bow from the stern of a 10 foot boat.” At least we had nearly a 1/8 to 1/4 mile visibility reported as the worse section of the back up route. Might not have been the smartest thing to do but we geared up and left for Crockett.

The fog can be seen in the photo below.

As we rolled out of the gas station it appeared the fog might be lifting but once we dropped down off the hill it was as bad or worse than it had been when I dropped off the hill my house sits on. Surely a few miles up the road things will get better, or at least that was what I was hoping for.

The fog stayed thick for about the first 15 miles and then slowly began lifting and the temperature was also slowly increasing. We rode into New Waverly and the fog was at treetop level and starting to look good. The road surface was still as slick as greased owl snot so we kept the speeds around the posted speed limit.

Finally things were looking up for the ride. The road surface was drying out and the fog was just above the treetops. Then we hit the section of the route between Huntsville and Bedias, the temperature took a big drop and with us being damp from the fog, we got COLD. But I decided to push on to make a stop in Madisonville to warm up and stretch our legs. I guess it was the cold that was making my legs hurt since we hadn’t been on the road long enough to make my legs feel like they did. When we rolled into Madisonville we were an hour ahead of schedule due to part of the ride I had to cut out due to the fog.

The final ride segment into Crockett was still on the cool side but the fog was more or less gone, just low hanging clouds at this point. A few miles out of Crockett we caught up with another group that had taken the Interstate 45 north out of Houston. Just ahead of this group was the lone rider out of the Conroe area we had missed in our gathering at the ride start point. Jeff had said he was going to ride with us but when he started to roll his bike out of the garage he reported he couldn’t see the road from his garage doors, visibility at his house was well below what we had so he decided to wait around and then take the most direct route to Crockett.

Photos from the ride, some are mine and some are photos I grabbed from other riders…

We had a little changing of the guard ceremony, Chuck (holding the plaque) has been our "Pie Man 2" for the past several years haven taken over the duties of the "Original" Pie Man when he and his family moved off to some foreign country... I think they moved to Oregon or Washington. Regardless of where they moved to, we needed a legal resident to take his place and Chuck was the man... "Pie Man 2" as we took to calling him. Leon, "Pie Man 3.0" (Standing next to Chuck) presented Chuck with this small token of our appreciation.

Chuck then proceeds to take the tools of the trade from his bag of goodies to help Leon get off on the right foot for next year's Pie Runs...

More to follow...

 

[hemibee]

A couple of the Waco, Texas riders camped out Friday night and were in the area to do a little exploring before the Pie Run, here is some of their information and photos.

Enon Cemetery is a good place to take a break and shed some layers. It always seems a little mystical to me.

A stop at the Plain Baptist Church started a discussion of schisms in the Baptist Church that lasted about thirty second. With out familiarity of the topic exhausted we moved on.

A chain saw is a necessary tool of travel in the forest. We noticed several large trees across the road.

We finally made it to the Hamilton road area. By that point I was convinced that the Ural rig was perfect for the sandy and muddy condition presented by the ET450 track (it can carry a cooler, too!)

Saturday morning was FOGGY. Fortunately for us the secondary roads we took from Weches to Crockett were still a lot of fun at slower speeds. This is a shot on the dirt road that parallels 287 from Grapeland to Crocket.

We arrived early to find a full parking lot and an empty pie pan.

Other people got pie!!! Why not us?

We stayed late, bribed the waitress and got PIE!!

More to follow...

 

[otherwise]

What is this?

 

[hemibee]

As the above photos show, the place was a little crowded. Chuck had told the manager we were expecting 40 to 50 riders showing up but at the last minute the number had swollen to over 100 planning to making the ride and it overwhelmed the staff they had on hand. Half of the Conroe riders were waited on within 15 minutes of finding their seats, they had only been able to place their drink orders and were still waiting to place lunch orders. The rest of us were still waiting 20 minutes after the first half of our group had placed their drink orders (which had not arrived yet) so we decided to go down the street to another café to eat.

Café’s sign with the old school building in the background.

We weren’t sure if this was the smart thing to do especially since nothing had really gone right on the ride so far. It was the smart thing to do. We walked into an all you can eat lunch buffet that was awesome. Great home cooking and plenty of PIE just waiting to be eaten by some hungry bikers and locals.

Some of those that ate at The Moosehead did not get any pie because the crowd was as said, larger than expected.

I had gotten ahead of myself earlier and didn’t post the photos from our starting point so here they are now…

James and the other Tony

The crew

Fog appears to be lifting, we couldn’t see the building next door earlier

People shots at The Moosehead Café

An something that’s become a tradition for our group… Tony taking a picture of Tony taking a picture of Tony… Dang it he moved his camera and I moved mine when I hit the shutter…

More to come…

 

[hemibee]

After we finished eating we headed back over to The Moosehead to do a little looking at the bikes and visiting with some of the riders we didn’t see before we departed.

more bikes

 

[hemibee]

peoples

 

[hemibee]

more peoples

 

[hemibee]

I'm still working on the videos from the ride, had a little problem with the GoPro not recording. I think I found the problem, it appears to have been the nut behind the handlebars that caused the issues. Hopefully for the next ride I will have the nut working correctly. I'll edit what I did get and will post it/them with the ride home report so stay tuned for more information.

 

[hemibee]

iMovie has crashed on me and I can't figure out what is wrong with it. I will keep trying to find the problem and will post videos as soon as I get it up and running again.

There wasn't much to tell about the ride home without the videos so I'll have to wait until I get the movies running before I finish this ride report. I do know the GoPro quit just as we got to the dirt road which was the most interesting part of the ride, especially when you have a rider and his wife on a Long Distance (Iron Butt) modified FJR hitting the dirt 2 Up.

For now I will just say it was a great way to end the year on two wheels even with the fog from the morning portion of the ride. The sun came out and it warmed up a little but still comfortable in mild winter gear.

 

[otherwise]

What is this?

View attachment 2783

Bump.

 

[hemibee]

Oops, thought I had answered.

It's a Stallion. Uses Ford Ranger equipment, engine, transmission, narrowed rearend, air conditioner, heater, steering wheel and gauges. It's owned by a 72+ year old that also rides a Suzuki Bandit and a Honda N700. He bought it for a trip to Alaska a couple years ago and fell in love with it.

 

[otherwise]

Very interesting, just did a quick search and will look further tonight.

 

[hemibee]

It is definitely interesting. They run pretty good too. Dick hasn't slowed down much in his 70's and his has been rode hard and put away wet many times.

 

[hemibee]

More photos of Dick's Stallion

 

[otherwise]

What's required to drive / ride, a car or bike permit and in states where a helmet is required on a bike, does he have to put one on or wear a seat belt?

 

[hemibee]

It is by vehicle rules a motorcycle and must meet motorcycle requirements. A helmet is required in helmet law states, no seat belt required. Dick wears his helmet regardless of where or what he rides. A motorcycle license is required of the rider, bike is plated as a bike and insured as a bike.

 

[CarlS]

Tony, a great ride report and superb photos - as usual.

I have found that side car rigs are very versatile. and will go in some tough places. The Urals with two wheel drive are even better.