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DFW RTE East Texas Curving Grounds 19 MAR 16

kv5e

South Central Area Director - COG 5063
Staff member
Member
This is a RIDE TO EAT day ride event that will begin on the east side of DFW. We will carve up some nice twisties after a slab start and then have lunch near Athens, TX. After lunch there''s some additional twisties before a return to DFW.  :motonoises:

19th of March 2016,  KSU @ 0900 from the 7-11/Shell station on the south corner of US 80 and Belt Line road in Mesquite, TX.

3527 U.S. 80 Frontage Rd., Mesquite TX


Please join in for "a bit of fun" and make sure your tyres have some rubber on the sides.

Please register for this FREE EVENT here so a headcount is available.

http://www.cog-online.org/clubportal/EventDetailPublic2.cfm?clubID=1328&EventID=230668&mo=3&tDate={d%20%272016-03-07%27}
214.542.7207

Craig
 
rickm_tx said:
I will try to make it.  No promises, but would love to be there.

It will be great to see both Pete and Rick there!!!  :motonoises:
 
I am going to try and make this ride. Most likely I will ride to the eatin' place with the group, but will branch off after and head to see some friends in Athens.
 
Just checked the model guidance for next week and Saturday may clear out for the ride.

After the current cutoff low lifts out to the east, looks like sunny skies until late in the work week when another disturbance dives down from the NW. This one will be driven by the jet so if it stays progressive, Saturday the 19th looks like decent weather.

I will make the call by Wednesday as the model data will be a lot more definitive as to timing.

Craig
 
I hope to make it.  Will know closer to the date.  This will be my second RTE since moving here last summer. 

Jim
WA4P
 
kv5e said:
This is a RIDE TO EAT day ride event that will begin on the east side of DFW. We will carve up some nice twisties after a slab start and then have lunch near Athens, TX. After lunch there''s some additional twisties before a return to DFW.  :motonoises:

19th of March 2016,  KSU @ 0900 from the 7-11/Shell station on the south corner of US 80 and Belt Line road in Mesquite, TX.

3527 U.S. 80 Frontage Rd., Mesquite TX


Please join in for "a bit of fun" and make sure your tyres have some rubber on the sides.

Please register for this FREE EVENT here so a headcount is available.

http://www.cog-online.org/clubportal/EventDetailPublic2.cfm?clubID=1328&EventID=230668&mo=3&tDate={d%20%272016-03-07%27}
214.542.7207

Craig
Craig,

According to Google Maps, the address you've given above (3527 U.S. 80 Frontage Rd., Mesquite TX) is three miles west of US 80 and Belt Line Rd. on the NW corner of US 80 and Anthony Drive, about a block east of Town East Blvd. It also appears to be a standalone Shell station and not a 7-Eleven. There is a 7-Eleven on the SE corner of US 80 and Belt Line Rd. and the address of this store is 106 E. US-80, Mesquite, TX 75149. This is really confusing. If some guys use GPS to find the address you've provided and others simply go to the SE corner of US 80 and Belt Line, we'll be at two different places. Please clarify where we're supposed to meet up. Thanks.
 
BELT LINE AND US 80, SE CORNER.

106, US-80, Mesquite, TX 75149



IT IS CHANGED IN THE CALENDAR.

There was an event saved in the calendar from last year and I cut and paste the address from there. It is now corrected in the calendar.

Craig
 
OK, first the good news:

1. The weather is looking like it is going to cooperate, might have a little wind, but the showers should be over by 7AM Saturday morning.

Now, the not so good news,

2. Started up the bike to go gas up and the clutch was very soft. I am pretty sure it is clean and flush on the clutch hydraulics. That should get done tomorrow so when all is good I shall advise.

Craig
 
"bike with no name" is ready to go!

See you all in the morning,

Craig
 
kv5e said:
"bike with no name" is ready to go!

See you all in the morning,

Craig
Glad to hear you're good to go, Craig. Hey, you're our leader after all! We wouldn't know where to go without you! See you in the A.M.
 
Hope you Guys have a blast. I was keeping this in the back of my head as I'm in Texas right now. But, alas, not meant to be this time around.

:beerchug:
 
Where 'bouts are you? Maybe we'll come see you! If it's not too far out of the way. We'll be in east Texas today.
 
Hey, everyone...

I had a teenager issue pop up and couldn't join you, but I hope you had a fantastic ride!  Can't tell ya' how disappointed I was, I've been looking forward to this for weeks.

Pete
 
copdocpvd said:
Hey, everyone...

I had a teenager issue pop up and couldn't join you, but I hope you had a fantastic ride!  Can't tell ya' how disappointed I was, I've been looking forward to this for weeks.

Pete

You got a zit? jk - hope all is well - but, any reports from this ride??
 
Fais, I'll post my report tomorrow. In short, we had a great time and the weather was beautiful. Craig took us on a very nice ride. More tomorrow.
 
Trip reports forthcoming.

I want to apologize to the riders who we missed. I was very busy compiling the SC Newsletter and stuffed this ride in the schedule/calendar at Memberize. I used a previous event and changed the dates, unfortunately it had a different address for the meeting place. Jim pointed this out and I corrected the address in the forum and in the comment in the calendar. I could not change the place in the calendar without deleting the event and killing off the registrations.

Next time, I will ensure that the meeting place is embedded correctly in the Event data structure in the Calendar.

I have taken a pay cut in atonement!  :truce:

Craig
 
Greetings,

The following folks attended this RTE: Craig and Pamela Green, Greg Redmond and Jim Cowles (me). (Three C14s, four people) We met up at the 7-Eleven on the southeast corner of US 80 East and Belt Line Road in Mesquite. We left at about 9:08 AM. Heading east on US 80, we connected up with I-20 for a few miles. We took exit 506 for FM-429 and went southeast. The scenery got very pretty very quickly. Most of our ride was through farm land and we even saw a couple of small hills. North Texas is flatter than Kansas, so it was nice to see some topographical change further east. When we intersected with Texas 243, we went east for a few miles, then south on FM-47. Being largely farm land, we didn't see any towns on the early part of our ride, though we did cross the boundaries of several different counties. We later turned east on FM-1651, which introduced us to some more curves for several miles, then we found Texas 19 and went south to FM-858. We continued along very scenic farm land with cattle, horses and llamas until we reached a really nice, curvy road, FM-773, which took us further south to our first town in over an hour's worth of riding, Murchison. Stopping to turn around, we decided to go to The Shed, in Edom for lunch, which was about 15 minutes away. The burgers were great and the pie was outstanding.

After lunch, we decided to pay a visit to the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center (a fish hatchery) on the north side of Lake Athens. It was educational for me to learn that Texas is second only to Minnesota in the amount of fresh water lake shoreline. Having lived in central Florida as a kid, where you couldn't go more than 10 feet before running into another lake or pond, I was quite surprised. It was also interesting to learn that Caddo Lake (on the Texas/Louisiana border) is the only natural lake in Texas, the rest being man made. Oh yeah, and once you see how big Alligator Gar can get, it'll make you think twice about swimming in a lake. They grow up to 10 feet long!

I wanted to pay a visit to Canton to see what it was like, as it hosts a huge flea market every month. It was not busy on Saturday. It was rather boring, so we continued to ride. We decided to head north of I-20 on the return trip, so we took Texas 19 to Emory, then west on Texas 276 across the north end of Lake Tawakoni. We took Texas 34 southwest back to US 80 and back into the Dallas area. As I live in a northern Dallas suburb, I put 300 miles on my bike for this ride. It was a great day for a ride. The scenery was gorgeous, for farm land, and the temperature was very pleasant, reaching up into the low 60's by ride's end.

I liked Craig's route so much that I took my daughter for a ride along most of the it yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, too, but about 6 to 10 degrees cooler than Saturday. I'd much rather be a little chilly than sweltering in our upcoming 110 degree heat. We stopped at Buc-ee's in Terrell, which my daughter had not yet been to. It is an amazing store. It has 100 gas pumps, something like 120 individual rest room facilities (urinals and stalls) and they sell everything from deer corn to pop corn. They claim having the cleanest restrooms in the U.S. as there's someone in there all of the time keeping them clean. These stores are only in Texas for now, but are spreading throughout Texas quickly.

To me, it was very refreshing to see a different part of northeast Texas than the roads I typically ride on. I hope more folks can join us the next time we do this!
 
Thanks for the write up Jim. One small route correction, from Canton it is TX 64 north through Myrtle Springs to Wills Point. US 80 west to FM 47 north through downtown Wills Point. FM 47 follows the the Lake Tawakoni dam until you turn west on TX 276 and go across the lake.

The name East Texas Curving Grounds is a term that comes from the old army term, White Sands Proving Grounds or Mercury Proving Grounds  to Curving Grounds. A lot of testing was done on those bases and a lot of exploratory riding was done to cull out a pretty decent series of twisty roads with low traffic. I am working to extend the routes further down into the "Pine Curtain" and still have a day ride with a good place to have lunch.

FM roads in Texas are a great way to find nice riding. I have a back road FM ride to the Wildflower Ride that stays off of main highways for almost the whole route and has great scenery with nice curves. Looking forward to that in a few weeks.

Craig
 
Thanks for the correction, Craig. I didn't memorize the road numbers on the way back. Thanks again for a great ride!
 
Bigfoot_16 said:
It was educational for me to learn that Texas is second only to Minnesota in the amount of fresh water lake shoreline.

Nice write up for sure.  Did your GPS track the route so you could retrace it or look at it and see where you have been?
I'm not sure if I would be able to recall all you did - Of course if you live there it should be easier to remember where you've been.  :great:

Even though it is too cold to ride here (for me) with lows below freezing, at least in my lifetime I have never seen a temp of 110° here.
Last year I think we hit 90° twice (maybe) and the year before (2014) we never hit 90°.
So I guess there are pros and cons to most things and Summertime here is pretty good as I can't remember thinking it's too hot to ride.
But Winter here sucks, whereas I assume there are very few days it gets too cold for you to ride - but it does get to hot?  ???


I'm wondering who told you MN and TX have the most fresh water shoreline.
I think I would have to see some info to prove that to me.

I found this and think it's probably closer to the truth.

The Great Lakes coast measures approximately 10,500 miles (16,900 km);[15] however, the length of a coastline is impossible to measure exactly and is not a well-defined measure (see Coastline paradox). Of the total 10,500 miles (16,900 km) of shoreline, Canada borders approximately 5,200 miles (8,400 km), while the remaining 5,300 miles (8,500 km) are bordered by the United States. Michigan has the longest shoreline of the United States, bordering roughly 3,288 miles (5,292 km) of shoreline, followed by Wisconsin (820 miles (1,320 km)), New York (473 miles (761 km)), and Ohio (312 miles (502 km)).[49] Traversing the shoreline of all the lakes would cover a distance roughly equivalent to travelling half-way around the world at the equator.[15]

Could it have been MI instead of MN?

We have a lot of lakes in MI and when you add the Great Lakes, I have to believe that we are #1 if not at least #2 in the USA.  JMO.



 
Thanks, Karl. Yes, my GPS tracked the return trip. I was too lazy to look at it. The first part of the trip was the most scenic anyway.

Wow, to only hit 90° F a couple of times per summer. That would be quite different indeed, from Texas. I'm sure you have your fair share of trade offs, though, like mosquitoes and black flies. We have mosquitoes here, but they're not nearly as bad here as they are up north around the great lakes or in Florida. This "winter" in Texas was more like fall. It never really got cold at all. I rode throughout most of the winter season.

I ride here in the really hot stuff, but it's not pleasant. It's more like riding inside a hair dryer. It's easy to put on more clothes when it's cold. It's a lot harder to shed clothes due to the heat - and remain safe with the necessary protective gear.

The part about Texas being second only to Minnesota in lake shoreline was stated on a plaque at the Texas fish hatchery we visited.
 
Bigfoot_16 said:
Thanks, Karl. Yes, my GPS tracked the return trip. I was too lazy to look at it. The first part of the trip was the most scenic anyway.

Wow, to only hit 90° F a couple of times per summer. That would be quite different indeed, from Texas. I'm sure you have your fair share of trade offs, though, like mosquitoes and black flies. We have mosquitoes here, but they're not nearly as bad here as they are up north around the great lakes or in Florida. This "winter" in Texas was more like fall. It never really got cold at all. I rode throughout most of the winter season.

I ride here in the really hot stuff, but it's not pleasant. It's more like riding inside a hair dryer. It's easy to put on more clothes when it's cold. It's a lot harder to shed clothes due to the heat - and remain safe with the necessary protective gear.

The part about Texas being second only to Minnesota in lake shoreline was stated on a plaque at the Texas fish hatchery we visited.

Thanks for the info Jim.

The mosquitoes are not bad here - in the UP near Lake Superior they are much worse. 
Very few Black flies here either unless your on a horse farm - Some regular flies but not to bad compared to other places I've been.
The Summers here are pretty good for the most part - it's just that it's a short season. May - Sept some years.  It can be a bit longer or shorter
depending on the year.  Maybe if global warming kicks in our season will start sooner and end later.  Fine by me.

No offense, and I know your just reporting what a "plaque" said - but unless that plaque stated numbers to back it up, like the info I posted,
well lets just say you can't believe everything on a plaque.  I know because of where I live, I don't believe that MN and TX have more than MI. 
If they were only including inland lakes - well maybe, but because the Great Lakes are fresh water I think they would have to include those - maybe they didn't.

 
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