Early Bird Tour de la Tortuga ride

[cuong-nutz]

I was scheduled to be off on Tuesday but my boss told me I had to be present for a new instrument presentation and so switched my day off to be Wednesday instead. So I figured I plan a ride for Wednesday morning. I posted on our local forum to see if there was anyone interested in coming a long but being it was last minute and on a weekday no one could make it out. KSU time was originally 6 AM but I held off until 7 AM just to see if any last minute stragglers were coming. This ride was expected to be a 6hr ride with no stops for lunch. Just riding and fueling. I named this ride as so because I was watching Breaking Bad and Danny Trejo was nicknamed Tortuga.

Cutting it close, aren't you?
Lots of time.
Tortuga may be slow out of the gate, but he always Finishes first.

I arrived at the local meet spot at Starbucks and grabbed a juice at Jamba Juice next door. It's almost 7 AM and no one has arrived, texted, called, or posted on the forum. Off I go. Traffic was not full blown bumper to bumper yet so cruised on and hopped onto the HOV lane west on I-10.

I had half a tank of gas and filled up at the gas station next to Snowflake Donuts. Grabbed a small jalapeno kolache and donut and back onto the road. Temp was in the low 60s and I had all the vents in my jacket open and I was a bit chilly and sniffling. I hit the first set of small twisties outside of Sealy on 949 to get a little warm up session before I hit the nice set on 1291. Left handers felt fine but I need more work on right handers as I'm putting too much weight on the right handle bar/throttle which is affecting front feel and handling. Also I was noticing that was not getting off the bike too and I felt I was pushing wide.

When I got into Fayetteville I heard a loud tapping in the rear of my bike. Pulled over and saw that my exhaust hanger had broke off and the exhaust was hitting the passenger peg bracket and my swing arm. Quick fix with some speaker wire I had and off I went.

The rolling hills and vast lands were very scenic inbetween Fayetteville and Roundtop. I got to Roundtop and reinspected the speaker wire holding my exhaust up. It was holding fine still. Roundtop was known for their extravagent antique shows and festivals and they were having one this week/weekend. I stopped at one and took a picture. I took the main roads as I was running behind from my exhaust mishap and got popped by DPS for speeding. 2nd speeding ticket this year. Original route was to take 1457 back south to 389 East into Brenham for a more of a scenic ride but then again, I pushed the KSU time to see if anyone wanted to join.

Rode through historic Brenham and made my way onto Old Chappell Hill road. It's a single shared lane road with a nice tree canopy covering sections of the road and a whole lot of blind turns and private driveways through acres and acres of farm land. Filled up at Shell gas station and reinspected the speaker wire. Some of it had cut through and so I retied it.

Head north towards Washington on the Brazos state park taking 1155 to 2726. Sadly I might have killed a squirrel and than almost got hit by deer before reaching the park. I had seen two deer on the right side of the road up ahead of me and slowed down a little. As I got closer to them, they took off in a mad dash ahead and when I got almost next to them, the leftmost deer darted left onto the road. I was getting ready for impact. I ducked low onto my tank bag and got knocked in the helmet by it's rear hooves as it jumped over me. Holy crap.

Took a breather when I got to the park entrance. Recollected myself and off into Navasota I went to get onto 3090. 3090 is a relatively famous section of road here that a lot of bikers like to ride on. There have been also a few fatalities and many many accidents. This road is seemily always under construction and there are always loose dirt and gravel on the sides of the roads. I rode north on 3090 to Carlos, TX and then back south it onto Highway 6 back into Houston. I wanted to Take 149 east into the forest but I was already behind schedule and I needed to be back in Houston for a lunch date with the girlfriend.

So I'm slabbing it on highway 6 and notice that my exhaust just got louder and louder. I look to the rear I saw my exhaust can was coming apart and falling out. I see it fall and tumble and an 18 wheeler was behind me. I pull off to the shoulder and drive back against traffic to see if i could find it. circled at least 5 times with no luck.

I text my GF that I'm going to be late and ride home with an open pipe and my ears bleeding for the next hour. My ears continued to ring for the next 20 minutes and finally cleared or at least I think it did. I'm going to have to find a new cheap slip on or see how much a new Area P can is going to set me back. But before all that, I got to figure out how much my ticket is going to cost me. I'm going to have to settle for deferred adjucation since I have already taken defensive driving this year already.

This turtle started fast and finished slow.

Sorry, no go pro videos as I didn't clean out my memory card.

Not sure if the map will work but if you're interested in the route you can try clicking this link: https://goo.gl/maps/8WqDb

[NevadaWolf]

Suck about the pipe and performance award. Holy crap about the deer!!

Hope the late lunch made up for things at least.

[cuz]

I would have totally gone if my leg didn't get run over by a suburban eh*(Im fine)

Now thats a ride!!!

I can't believe how lucky you got with the deer Free willy The deer version Chris is going to be jelly

That cop picture is priceless

Yea dude I mean if you don't want any points do the adjudication Just calm down for the next 6 months I already finished mine

Oh and I think I still have the oem pipe let me know if you want it and Ill look for it.


Glad you're back home safe and sound

[snot]

At least you made back OK. Bosses fault for changing your day off.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by cuz

That cop picture is priceless expensive.

FTFY.

[cuong-nutz]

My neck/left shoulder feels like I pulled or strained a muscle. @cuz, thanks for the offer. I'm using the pipe from my other 250. I think I'm going to convert it back to stock. I love how quiet the stock exhaust is.

[Klondike1020]

Sounds like a long day.

Glad that deer didn't take you out.