The Cheese Weasels Do Big Bend, Texas

[Stichill]

Day 1 - Friday 23 March 2018 - Riding to Luckenbach and Leakey

After devouring our delicious lunch, we saddled up and hit the highway for the first leg of our journey.



I was settling into riding the Street Glide and began to enjoy its comfortable seat. Too, many of the secondary highways in Texas have a speed limit of 70 or 75 miles per hour (mph) and I started to look forward to the wind protection promised by the large fairing. Well, that didn't work out too well. Starting around 60 mph, my helmet was subjected to low-amplitude, high-frequency buffeting. It was enough to blur my vision slightly and make it difficult to read road signs. It was caused by two jets of air coming around the bottom sides of the fairing and around the sides of the gas tank. If I blocked one jet with my left hand, the buffeting largely stopped.

Adding to the sensation of vibration was the road surface. 98% of the roads we traveled in Texas were some form of chip seal, or stone on tar. Around here in Kentucky, chip seal uses gray granite stone with pointed corners that give great traction but chew up tires. In Texas, the brown-colored stones somehow lay with a flat side facing up, which looks smooth, but the overall surface undulates up and down about 0.5 inch per 4 inches. The effect is somewhat like riding on shallow cobblestones. You feel a lot of vibration coming through the handlebars.

I was in the lead and set a pace of 65 mph to keep the twin vibration sources at a tolerable level. After about an hour and a half of riding like this, I started to feel like I was going to get a headache. I pulled over at a rest area and the other guy on a Street Glide reported the same conditions. We eliminated rider height as a factor because I'm 5'5" and he's 6'0". The taller guy on a Road Glide reported buffeting only above 70 mph while the shorter guy on a Road Glide reported some buffeting above 65 mph. We all realized that we were going to be missing our personal bikes on this trip! I was also missing the Triumph Thunderbird I'd ridden in Death Valley last year and was lamenting the unavailability of the Fat Boy.


First rest stop, where we contemplated the riding conditions we'd be dealing with on these big Glides.

Despite the buffeting issues (which could be fixed by adding lower fairings), the Glides had a lot going for them as road bikes. They were rock-steady on the highway. The big Milwaukee Eight V-Twin had gobs of torque and a 5500 rpm redline, which it reached quickly. The engine turned only 3100 rpm at 85 mph. I was surprised at how smoothly the transmission shifted, and the intelligent self-canceling turn signals were a marvel, working flawlessly and seamlessly every time. The locking side stand of course is the best in the business, able to hold up a heavy bike even on somewhat soft surfaces. One thing I didn't like was that the bike would not start unless it was in Neutral, even with the clutch level pulled in. I found this to be dangerous in the event of a stall in traffic.

At Dripping Springs we turned west on TX 290 and ran along the south side of the Pedernales River to Luckenbach Road, where we turned south to head into the touristy little town.


Bike parking lot at Luckenbach; Stichill at right.


Four Cheese Weasels; Stichill in black.


The sun started to peek out from behind the thin overcast.

Luckenbach reminded me a lot of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. It's a lazy little "town" of ramshackle old buildings where you can get a beer, hang out, buy souvenirs, listen to some music, pet a cat, or look at the chickens living in the trees out back.



We continued south out of Luckenbach and turned west at Sisterdale, heading toward Comfort and Centerpoint on our way to Medina. West of Medina is where the Texas Hill Country really begins. The sun came out fully and the riding got much more interesting once we hit TX 337 at Medina. 337 is one of the famed "Three Twisted Sisters": Texas Ranch Roads 335, 336, and 337.

We had hoped to reach Vanderpool in time to see the motorcycle museum there, but we arrived in town just as it was closing, so we stopped for a break and to gas up at the country store instead.




Doing my best "Harley face" as I re-park my bike after filling up the tank.

We continued the great riding from Vanderpool to Leakey along 337, where we saw our first decent curves. Once we rolled into Leakey, our stop for the night, we wanted to first visit the Frio Canyon Motorcycle Stop just west of town on 337.






I hear naked bikes are all the rage; more practicing my chopper scowl.

We all bought little trinkets like T-shirts, stickers, and road pins. Then we headed back into town to find our cabins.


Turning into the Historic Leakey Inn and Cabins parking lot.


Home Sweet Home for the night.


We walked back to find the cabins, then rode the bikes back to park for the night. Broke character and forgot to scowl!