Day 1: Richardson, TX - Truth or Consequences, NM; 768 miles
I may be wrong, but I think I borrowed the 1st two pages from Mellow's most recent ride.
I left the DFW area on US380. As an aside, I found that I fall into the trap of being very provincial at times in my attitudes towards local highways. Sometimes one doesn't regard a highway in more than how it serves us in our day to day lives. For many north Texans, 380 is just a hwy that runs locally east to west from Greenville to Denton and points beyond, but sometimes we forget about the 'points beyond'...US380 runs all the way thru west Texas and into New Mexico, running thru Roswell and on up north of Ruidoso to I25.
I was worried 380 might be monotonous and I was wrong. There was plenty of scenery, elevation diversity and curves; and this was a good time to see west Texas in a new way.
I won't go into describing what I saw in every little hamlet along the way except for one...When I arrived in the sleepy town of Plains, TX the main hwy, which is also the main drag of the town was closed off. I could see classic cars lined up and down the street and people walking around in what seemed a carnival atmosphere. Traffic off US380 was diverted one block south and all cross streets had been roped off, with all stop signs on the detour covered with black trash bags. There were thousands of folks in a town of barely 1,500 and not a parking spot to be had. I just assumed this was some sort of regional or county fair and that the town didn't have a proper fairgrounds, so they use all of downtown. Wrong. It was not a county fair; it was the annual Plains Watermelon Roundup, and everyone in the area had turned up. I just thought it was interesting the entire downtown was turned into a carnival and the city fathers deemed it OK to close the main east/west highway to use for the weekend's celebrations!
I fueled up on the edge of town and headed for Roswell. Not 5 minutes into this stint, my heart sank as my bike suddenly developed what felt like a 'smooth miss'. I was losing power dramatically but the bike seemed to want to run, and wasn't going to die. This went on for about 30-40 seconds. I backed of the gas and tried to gradually accelerate. Things weren't getting better and when I decided to downshift, the bike almost came to a stop as I pulled in on the clutch! I knew then it was not the engine; somehow the rear brake had been getting applied all this time and what I had thought was a 'miss' was just the engine laboring against the rear brake. Happily, and with great relief, I pressed onward. In the minutes that ensued, I tried to think of all the weird things that could have caused the rear brake to engage. I finally settled on the most likely and embarrassing scenario; that somehow I had unwittingly let my foot drift onto the brake pedal and was oblivious to it. Since I had no more issues with the brakes for the rest of the trip and they worked perfectly, I had to throw out the other scenarios I had thought of.
On to Roswell and an unplanned detour into Ruidoso, which added unwanted miles and time to my day. The reason for the detour? Lets just say I hadn't done my pre-trip homework and had to resolve a big issue, and felt Ruidoso was the place to do it. As it turned out, riding west and south out of Ruidoso on 70 is a lovely ride and I pressed on for Alamagordo, then edged by Las Cruces and finally T or C, NM
768 miles, 13.5 hrs
I may be wrong, but I think I borrowed the 1st two pages from Mellow's most recent ride.
I left the DFW area on US380. As an aside, I found that I fall into the trap of being very provincial at times in my attitudes towards local highways. Sometimes one doesn't regard a highway in more than how it serves us in our day to day lives. For many north Texans, 380 is just a hwy that runs locally east to west from Greenville to Denton and points beyond, but sometimes we forget about the 'points beyond'...US380 runs all the way thru west Texas and into New Mexico, running thru Roswell and on up north of Ruidoso to I25.
I was worried 380 might be monotonous and I was wrong. There was plenty of scenery, elevation diversity and curves; and this was a good time to see west Texas in a new way.
I won't go into describing what I saw in every little hamlet along the way except for one...When I arrived in the sleepy town of Plains, TX the main hwy, which is also the main drag of the town was closed off. I could see classic cars lined up and down the street and people walking around in what seemed a carnival atmosphere. Traffic off US380 was diverted one block south and all cross streets had been roped off, with all stop signs on the detour covered with black trash bags. There were thousands of folks in a town of barely 1,500 and not a parking spot to be had. I just assumed this was some sort of regional or county fair and that the town didn't have a proper fairgrounds, so they use all of downtown. Wrong. It was not a county fair; it was the annual Plains Watermelon Roundup, and everyone in the area had turned up. I just thought it was interesting the entire downtown was turned into a carnival and the city fathers deemed it OK to close the main east/west highway to use for the weekend's celebrations!
I fueled up on the edge of town and headed for Roswell. Not 5 minutes into this stint, my heart sank as my bike suddenly developed what felt like a 'smooth miss'. I was losing power dramatically but the bike seemed to want to run, and wasn't going to die. This went on for about 30-40 seconds. I backed of the gas and tried to gradually accelerate. Things weren't getting better and when I decided to downshift, the bike almost came to a stop as I pulled in on the clutch! I knew then it was not the engine; somehow the rear brake had been getting applied all this time and what I had thought was a 'miss' was just the engine laboring against the rear brake. Happily, and with great relief, I pressed onward. In the minutes that ensued, I tried to think of all the weird things that could have caused the rear brake to engage. I finally settled on the most likely and embarrassing scenario; that somehow I had unwittingly let my foot drift onto the brake pedal and was oblivious to it. Since I had no more issues with the brakes for the rest of the trip and they worked perfectly, I had to throw out the other scenarios I had thought of.
On to Roswell and an unplanned detour into Ruidoso, which added unwanted miles and time to my day. The reason for the detour? Lets just say I hadn't done my pre-trip homework and had to resolve a big issue, and felt Ruidoso was the place to do it. As it turned out, riding west and south out of Ruidoso on 70 is a lovely ride and I pressed on for Alamagordo, then edged by Las Cruces and finally T or C, NM
768 miles, 13.5 hrs
