Tweet
Road Trip Home
This summer I decided to get back into riding after a lengthy hiatus. Being born and raised in the desert of west Texas, there wasn’t much to do out there except ride. So I started at an early age.
My first experience with a real motorcycle was in 1970 or thereabouts. I was 10 and my grandfather bought a Sears Allstar? It was a 175 cc Puch. It was air cooled, twin, and horizontally opposed. Not much of a bike but enough to hook a 10 year old, even if I had a hard time straddling it.
From there I graduated to dirt bikes. I had a couple KX125, a Honda SL350, and a racer…a Yamaha MX100…the predecessor to the venerable YZ series. Being a desert rat there was no shortage of places to ride and race. The desert is a great place to ride, especially on dirt. I mean there is so much of it, the weather is usually cooperative, and you can’t really tear anything up in the desert because there is nothing to tear up.
As my love of riding grew so did the size of bike. When I went to college I had a 1980 XS650. That was IMO one of the best bikes Yamaha ever made. Though it was not powerful, fast or smooth…the old twin was very durable and reliable and it was my first real street bike. I took several medium range road trips (500-1000 miles) on that 650 Special. It wasn’t much for road trips. Even at that age my back hurt after a few hours on the road. At highway speeds the old twin was somewhat anemic. But nostalgia has etched a favorable image of that bike in my mind.
Fast forward …2004…I had the itch for an old YammyHammer Maxim. Back in college I had driven one of my buddies 650 Maxim on a short 500 mile trip. I fell in lust with that bike. It was so smooth, and fast, and quite. Even for a medium size bike, the XJ650 was fairly comfortable on a road trip. I figured the bigger ones would even be better. In 2004 I discovered I had figured right.
I started my quest for the last of the Mohican’s…the last of the venerable XS11…the “Maximized” 11. I stumbled upon this prolific website, www.xs11.com and got to reading and drooling over pictures. Many friends thought I was nuts for wanting a vintage big bike. They all had gone on to the boringly predictable variety of Harleys, V-Twins, and clones thereof. I simply couldn’t go that route. The last time I rode a Harley was 1979. The experience partially impaired me. I only spun the ’79 Sportster a couple miles. Yet in that distance my vision was blurred and hands were itching from the vibration. My hearing suffered temporary damage from the unbelievably annoying exhaust note. After that experience I swore Harleys and V-Twins off indefinitely.
Most of the XJ1100s I found were high mileage and rougher than a rub board. Occasionally I would find a nice looker with on 20,000 miles but it would always have some issue like bent shifting fork or others. Most of the available Maxim 1100 were on eBay or Cycletrader. When I did have interest enough to go see one it usually never looked as good as the photos. Then one day an ad popped up here at XS11.com. A 1982 XJ1100 Maxim with 5800 miles for sale by original owner. I was really encouraged when I called and the owner was a female. Basically she bought it new, drove it for about 5000 miles and decided it was too big. She parked it in a garage for about 20 years; only driving it enough to keep it limber.
She sent pictures and it looked very good. I loaded up in a F350 and drove from Oklahoma to California. End of story. It was a long drive but worth it. I got the bike home, cleaned it up, ran a tank of Seafoam laden gas through it and she was good as new.
After having put a 1000 miles or so on “Godzilla” I had full faith in him. I decided to take a long over due road trip. But where would I go? Where else…home.
The roads back home in the desert are so wide, and straight, and open. Though the mountains rugged and barren, there are place where the valleys open up and you can see all the way out to the curve (the earth’s curvature). Then when you get up in the mountains proper the roads are twisty. Yet unlike other mountain roads the desert mountains give unprecedented sunshine over rain, warmth over cool, even in the fall.
My longtime friend and fellow Texican, Miles, loaded up on our bikes one cold fall morning and headed south. The first day we made about 700 miles from the Tulsa area to Odessa, TX. The trip was uneventful except for the fact that his “Bitch” started missing occasionally. He finally determined he had a loose battery cable around Abilene and tightened up. The “Bitch”, a 1996 Virago, never missed again from that point. When he explained to me that the word “Virago” meant loud, contentious woman, I appropriately dubbed his bike “Bitch”.
At this point you maybe wondering why I dubbed my Maxim 1100 “Godzilla”. Several reasons come to mind. It’s big, powerful, and sounds mean when angry. Also, like Godzilla, it’s Japanese. But the main reason I named it Godzilla was due to the mythical nature of the beast. Legend has it the XS11 was one of the greatest bikes ever made. I believe this legend may persist through the annals of motorcycle history in the future. Only time will tell.
We grabbed room in Odessa and rested for the trip to Alpine the next day. Alpine is home to Sul Ross State University and gateway to the Big Bend National Park. Big Bend was our primary destination but before we went there we were headed to Guadalupe National Park on the Texas/New Mexico border. Guadalupe is home to “El Capitan” and Guadalupe Peak, the highest mountain in Texas (8749’).
We left south out of Odessa on 385 cruising down to Fort Stockton. The roads out there are long and straight and go forever. You can see cars approaching miles in advance, that includes troopers. At times I swear I could hear Zilla saying “Let me go…let me go”. I think he’d been caged up in that lady’s garage so long he was literally yearning to do what he was designed to do. I’d open the throttle and let him roar…90…100…120 mph before I would reign him in. You may think I’m nuts, but I believe that old bike was crying tears of joy that he’d finally been released from his garage prison. It was awesome to be sitting on a NOS bike. For all practical intent Zilla was a new bike, just 22 years old.
We rode into the mountain town of Alpine. Alpine sits about 5500 feet above sea level. The mountains are pretty and tree covered. The people in Alpine are of the small town hospitality type. My high school buddy lives there and is no exception. We hooked up with him for a while then headed west-northwest through Marfa and Van Horn. The area around Marfa is “Big” country. For those of you old enough to remember the James Dean / Rock Hudson movie Giant, it was filmed on location at Marfa, Texas. The ridges and peaks were way in the distance. The grass in the valley was golden, and deep and rolled like the sea in the wind. It was dusk, the air was about 60 degrees and the setting sun gently warmed the road. The entire 100 mile trip from Alpine to Van Horn was serene and almost surreal.
The next morning we top our tanks off with fuel. The trip from Van Horn to Guadalupe was about 60 miles. There was literally no services between Van Horn and the National Park. The Park had no fuel either so our plan was drive straight to the Park and back to Van Horn. This would be a stretch for the “Bitch”. She only had a 3.9 gallon tank and the upper range of the Virago was about 120. This proved to be a near miss leaving Big Bend headed home. So I filled a quart bottle with fuel, hung it off my luggage rack just in case we need a few extra miles. Then we turned north toward the NM state line.
The road is boringly straight from Van Horn to Guadalupe. There are 2 maybe 3 shallow curves. It follows a long graben valley bound by classical horst block mountains. There are lots of cactus and Jack rabbits out there. But no gas stations!
About 30 miles away you could see the monolith of El Capitan. It juts from the desert floor majestically into the wide open west Texas sky. It is truly awe inspiring watching the sheer face of the rock rise higher and higher as you approach the peak.
Here’s Miles and his Virago. The Delaware mountains can be seen in the backdrop.
Here I am with Zilla several miles out from El Capitan.
[IMG] http://totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/album...hp?pic_id=1790[/IMG]
The road up to the Park went past the peak. It was winding and very windy. The cross winds were challenging even on the big 11. The winds were gusting in places through that pass at 40-50 mph.
We pulled over at a roadside park and snapped this shot of Zilla and El Capitan.
[IMG] http://totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/album...hp?pic_id=1789[/IMG]
Then we went on up to the Park entrance. There is a visitor center there and Rangers on duty. The center has maps, photos and displays. Way back up in the Guadalupe mountains there is a beautiful place called McKittrick canyon. It has running mountains streams, big pines, elk, and deer. All the trappings of true alpine environment are available right there high above the desert floor in west Texas. It is truly spectacular, a high oasis in the barren Texas desert. If you ever get the chance to go there check it out. It’s only 20 miles southwest of Carlsbad Caverns on highway 62. This area is truly a great place to tour.
My first experience with a real motorcycle was in 1970 or thereabouts. I was 10 and my grandfather bought a Sears Allstar? It was a 175 cc Puch. It was air cooled, twin, and horizontally opposed. Not much of a bike but enough to hook a 10 year old, even if I had a hard time straddling it.
From there I graduated to dirt bikes. I had a couple KX125, a Honda SL350, and a racer…a Yamaha MX100…the predecessor to the venerable YZ series. Being a desert rat there was no shortage of places to ride and race. The desert is a great place to ride, especially on dirt. I mean there is so much of it, the weather is usually cooperative, and you can’t really tear anything up in the desert because there is nothing to tear up.
As my love of riding grew so did the size of bike. When I went to college I had a 1980 XS650. That was IMO one of the best bikes Yamaha ever made. Though it was not powerful, fast or smooth…the old twin was very durable and reliable and it was my first real street bike. I took several medium range road trips (500-1000 miles) on that 650 Special. It wasn’t much for road trips. Even at that age my back hurt after a few hours on the road. At highway speeds the old twin was somewhat anemic. But nostalgia has etched a favorable image of that bike in my mind.
Fast forward …2004…I had the itch for an old YammyHammer Maxim. Back in college I had driven one of my buddies 650 Maxim on a short 500 mile trip. I fell in lust with that bike. It was so smooth, and fast, and quite. Even for a medium size bike, the XJ650 was fairly comfortable on a road trip. I figured the bigger ones would even be better. In 2004 I discovered I had figured right.
I started my quest for the last of the Mohican’s…the last of the venerable XS11…the “Maximized” 11. I stumbled upon this prolific website, www.xs11.com and got to reading and drooling over pictures. Many friends thought I was nuts for wanting a vintage big bike. They all had gone on to the boringly predictable variety of Harleys, V-Twins, and clones thereof. I simply couldn’t go that route. The last time I rode a Harley was 1979. The experience partially impaired me. I only spun the ’79 Sportster a couple miles. Yet in that distance my vision was blurred and hands were itching from the vibration. My hearing suffered temporary damage from the unbelievably annoying exhaust note. After that experience I swore Harleys and V-Twins off indefinitely.
Most of the XJ1100s I found were high mileage and rougher than a rub board. Occasionally I would find a nice looker with on 20,000 miles but it would always have some issue like bent shifting fork or others. Most of the available Maxim 1100 were on eBay or Cycletrader. When I did have interest enough to go see one it usually never looked as good as the photos. Then one day an ad popped up here at XS11.com. A 1982 XJ1100 Maxim with 5800 miles for sale by original owner. I was really encouraged when I called and the owner was a female. Basically she bought it new, drove it for about 5000 miles and decided it was too big. She parked it in a garage for about 20 years; only driving it enough to keep it limber.
She sent pictures and it looked very good. I loaded up in a F350 and drove from Oklahoma to California. End of story. It was a long drive but worth it. I got the bike home, cleaned it up, ran a tank of Seafoam laden gas through it and she was good as new.
After having put a 1000 miles or so on “Godzilla” I had full faith in him. I decided to take a long over due road trip. But where would I go? Where else…home.
The roads back home in the desert are so wide, and straight, and open. Though the mountains rugged and barren, there are place where the valleys open up and you can see all the way out to the curve (the earth’s curvature). Then when you get up in the mountains proper the roads are twisty. Yet unlike other mountain roads the desert mountains give unprecedented sunshine over rain, warmth over cool, even in the fall.
My longtime friend and fellow Texican, Miles, loaded up on our bikes one cold fall morning and headed south. The first day we made about 700 miles from the Tulsa area to Odessa, TX. The trip was uneventful except for the fact that his “Bitch” started missing occasionally. He finally determined he had a loose battery cable around Abilene and tightened up. The “Bitch”, a 1996 Virago, never missed again from that point. When he explained to me that the word “Virago” meant loud, contentious woman, I appropriately dubbed his bike “Bitch”.
At this point you maybe wondering why I dubbed my Maxim 1100 “Godzilla”. Several reasons come to mind. It’s big, powerful, and sounds mean when angry. Also, like Godzilla, it’s Japanese. But the main reason I named it Godzilla was due to the mythical nature of the beast. Legend has it the XS11 was one of the greatest bikes ever made. I believe this legend may persist through the annals of motorcycle history in the future. Only time will tell.
We grabbed room in Odessa and rested for the trip to Alpine the next day. Alpine is home to Sul Ross State University and gateway to the Big Bend National Park. Big Bend was our primary destination but before we went there we were headed to Guadalupe National Park on the Texas/New Mexico border. Guadalupe is home to “El Capitan” and Guadalupe Peak, the highest mountain in Texas (8749’).
We left south out of Odessa on 385 cruising down to Fort Stockton. The roads out there are long and straight and go forever. You can see cars approaching miles in advance, that includes troopers. At times I swear I could hear Zilla saying “Let me go…let me go”. I think he’d been caged up in that lady’s garage so long he was literally yearning to do what he was designed to do. I’d open the throttle and let him roar…90…100…120 mph before I would reign him in. You may think I’m nuts, but I believe that old bike was crying tears of joy that he’d finally been released from his garage prison. It was awesome to be sitting on a NOS bike. For all practical intent Zilla was a new bike, just 22 years old.
We rode into the mountain town of Alpine. Alpine sits about 5500 feet above sea level. The mountains are pretty and tree covered. The people in Alpine are of the small town hospitality type. My high school buddy lives there and is no exception. We hooked up with him for a while then headed west-northwest through Marfa and Van Horn. The area around Marfa is “Big” country. For those of you old enough to remember the James Dean / Rock Hudson movie Giant, it was filmed on location at Marfa, Texas. The ridges and peaks were way in the distance. The grass in the valley was golden, and deep and rolled like the sea in the wind. It was dusk, the air was about 60 degrees and the setting sun gently warmed the road. The entire 100 mile trip from Alpine to Van Horn was serene and almost surreal.
The next morning we top our tanks off with fuel. The trip from Van Horn to Guadalupe was about 60 miles. There was literally no services between Van Horn and the National Park. The Park had no fuel either so our plan was drive straight to the Park and back to Van Horn. This would be a stretch for the “Bitch”. She only had a 3.9 gallon tank and the upper range of the Virago was about 120. This proved to be a near miss leaving Big Bend headed home. So I filled a quart bottle with fuel, hung it off my luggage rack just in case we need a few extra miles. Then we turned north toward the NM state line.
The road is boringly straight from Van Horn to Guadalupe. There are 2 maybe 3 shallow curves. It follows a long graben valley bound by classical horst block mountains. There are lots of cactus and Jack rabbits out there. But no gas stations!
About 30 miles away you could see the monolith of El Capitan. It juts from the desert floor majestically into the wide open west Texas sky. It is truly awe inspiring watching the sheer face of the rock rise higher and higher as you approach the peak.
Here’s Miles and his Virago. The Delaware mountains can be seen in the backdrop.
Here I am with Zilla several miles out from El Capitan.
[IMG] http://totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/album...hp?pic_id=1790[/IMG]
The road up to the Park went past the peak. It was winding and very windy. The cross winds were challenging even on the big 11. The winds were gusting in places through that pass at 40-50 mph.
We pulled over at a roadside park and snapped this shot of Zilla and El Capitan.
[IMG] http://totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/album...hp?pic_id=1789[/IMG]
Then we went on up to the Park entrance. There is a visitor center there and Rangers on duty. The center has maps, photos and displays. Way back up in the Guadalupe mountains there is a beautiful place called McKittrick canyon. It has running mountains streams, big pines, elk, and deer. All the trappings of true alpine environment are available right there high above the desert floor in west Texas. It is truly spectacular, a high oasis in the barren Texas desert. If you ever get the chance to go there check it out. It’s only 20 miles southwest of Carlsbad Caverns on highway 62. This area is truly a great place to tour.
Good read, enjoyed it. I wish we roads like that around here.
Comment