I am all for supporting businesses that are known to look after their employees.
Add Costco into that.
Posts by philipbarrett
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I zoomed in but didn't see any elektrik charging points
.I wouldn't want to be there on a busy day!
Crazy thing is that most days you still have to circle around to find an open pump! The New York Times had a feature on them recently too -
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/style/bucees-texas.html
I support them because they pay their employees well (start at $15 per hour), offer health benefits, 401K, college tuition & 3 weeks paid vacation. You ain't getting that at WalMart.
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Since yesterday promised to be fine and sunny (which it was) the local group met up at highly civilized 10am at Buc-ees for a run to lunch & back. About 230 miles in total & a good time was had by all.
What is Buc-ees you ask? It's a chain of simply humongous gas stations, mostly in Texas. They are privately owned and are famous for their spotless restrooms, homemade jerky & BBQ plus a store that seems to sell everything. Plus they have ethanol free gas! Bit of an institution around here.
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That's all I got!
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Hola from Tejas!
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Good set of wheels the 650 Funduro - had two of them over the years.
All my bikes have 2 wheels, isn't that the point?
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Skye is good...but I'm biased.
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Once you ridden through soft sand, looked down & realized you're doing 60mph you start to think..."I'm not this good."
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The KTM 790's, thus far seem to hit a sweet spot in the middle
I've ridden the 690/790/701 Enduro series quite a bit & if I was riding down to Tierra del Fuego with lots of off-piste planned I think these are excellent weapons of choice. But the caveat is, that with the 500 series you get a compromised road bike & an amazing dirt bike. With the Enduros you still have a compromised road bike plus now a compromised dirt bike.
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Thanks for your thoughts and links. My name is Scott, by the way. The as of yet, non-Scot Scott.
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The existing 501/500 platforms still have the (relatively) short service intervals and I worry about reliability/parts availability in the boonies. Texas and Mexico are right next to each to other. As the texasadventure feller says, he wouldn't use his build for long distance touring, though I didn't catch why he said that. I'm not sure why he said that as he says it managed it handled highway duties well...I suppose it's either having to stay in the high rev band, vibrations or the oil/filter change mid-trip.
Hello soon-to-be-Scot Scott, I'm soon to be Scot Philip!
The service intervals on the KTM based motors are complete works of fiction for the average rider. They're written for those who are capable of riding these bikes at their limits in competitive situations. For normal trail & road riding you can do 3K between changes & I've never had a valve adjustment needed.
Remember when Richard says "long distance touring" he's referring to US Southwest scale distances. Some of the best off road riding in Texas is 10 hours drive from me, the Mexico border is a similar distance and this is certainly not something you'd want to do on the 500 platform. But I've done 2 to 3 hours highway on mine & had no issues, sure it ain't an FJR but it gets the job done fine.
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It's prob the best power to weight in the class, being a KTM. It's a pity we all still have to wait for the low maintenance, sub-400lb, highway and offroad capable unicorn. Though, even if it existed, the waiting list would be 1 year given the supply chain chaos. Consider yourself quite fortunate. Me...I'll have to take whatever I can get as long as the wheels are still attached.
Your wish may be fulfilled - https://imotorbike.my/news/en/…/ktm-500-naked-adventure/
The Husqvarna 501 & the KTM 500 can be easily modified to get pretty close to unicorn status and any year model will work so can be done on the cheap. This is the typical "Texas-Mexico" riding build up done by a friend of mine - http://www.texasadventure.net/…ar/the-ktm-500-exc-build/
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What an adventure & thanks for taking the time to share. I've done the concussion thing & it really is strange; in my case, 10 miles down the road I was looking at my damaged bike & asking my riding buds how did my bike get like this?
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Easy;
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Wifey has made me promise we see P&D live in '22
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Haha...awesome...I lived in Houston for five years! Where were you in Texas? I do miss Texas sometimes. Had some great experiences there and good friends.
As for Scotland, I'll prob lay my hat one place, and then go all around including Skye and get a better feel of the lay of the land. Can always adjust later to new first-hand experience.
Dallas, hot & humid but not quite as close to the fiery gates of hell as Houston is! Cold beer & BBQ can only compensate for so much...
Be careful, Skye will put a spell on you.
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We were actually looking originally at the Southwest and Arran as we decided that warm & wet was preferable to cold & not quite so wet. Then we got talked into Skye.
Of course you coming from the land of lake effect snow & me coming from Texas, our frames of reference on climate may be somewhat different!
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The map does show a sort of corner after Santa Fe but it all looks wide and traffic free .
I should have taken a picture of the GPS purple line, completely straight for miles. At one point the turn by turn said "make a right in 158 miles!" Texas is 75 mph even on backroads & provided you stay within 10 mph of that you'll generally be OK.
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It was time to get the 1250 back to Texas so I took flight to Las Vegas last Thursday, setting off Friday for Dallas. Just over 1,400 miles and I avoided slabbing it (freeways) almost the entire way. Not a lot of time for pictures but I did capture some video.
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I saved reading the trip write up for a suitably wet and grey day.
Thoroughly enjoyed it; thanks for posting.
I'm in Seattle this week for work - the USA's equivalent of wet Scottish weather! Glad you enjoyed the stories.
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Really enjoying this, keep it coming! Love Death Valley, so spectacular. Did you do any gravel there?
BTW, if you want to avoid picture limits, get a Flikr or Smugmug account and then just drop in the links from there.
I have a smugmug actually, should have thought of that. Although some breaks give you time to make a cuppa and take a pee at least!
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The Conclusion;
The run from the Nevada border to Las Vegas is long, straight, hot & entirely unattractive but with just a slight detour you can head towards Mount Charleston where the road winds up from the desert floor back into the cool mountain air with gorgeous sweeps & turns made especially for motorcycles (or so we like to think). It's a popular biking destination from Las Vegas but they tend to take the Southern loop out and back & miss the best part which is the approach from the North. They also show up, shivering in cut-off Harley pirate cos-play gear, not realizing that they'll be at over 8,000' and it may be 95° on The Strip but snowing on the summit!
Again, the video does a better job of capturing the ride which sadly ended all too soon. And with the mountains behind us we headed into the sprawl of Las Vegas, a place which requires me to be at for work regularly and of which I'm no fan, enough said. Since there's still 3 solid days of riding between there & Dallas, Texas (plus it would be across the desert Southwest for the 2nd time in 2 months) Tim was safely tucked up at our warehouse waiting for a fall trip to perhaps Baja, Mexico and back up to LA or a return to Texas via New Mexico and Arizona & Big Bend, who knows? The planning is half the fun, just the darn jobs get in the way!
As always, the R1250GSA is the best sport tourer ever made & performed flawlessly throughout the trip although the rear Heidenau has about ended its journey. They're great tires but 2-up, fully loaded in the heat will wear even the longest lasting rubber and I can't complain at nearly 6,000 miles.
So...off to the airport where Southwest Airlines got us back in time for a late dinner at home. I have to give a huge shout out to Jane my amazing partner who rolls with the curves, smiles at the heat, laughs at danger (lie; she prods me in the ribs to slow down), packs lightly and is always ready for the next adventure.
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Thanks for riding along with us.
