TravellingStrom

Monday – Ozark, Arkansas

I found some very nice twistys today after initially getting lost and passing through North Pole???

So, the basic plan today was to go find some nice roads, but to get there I needed to head back to Antlers before heading north to Clayton and Talihina.

The road west was a bit busy and not exciting, but green and pleasant. It was a bit coolish this morning also, but the sun was out so I hoped it warmed up a bit during the day.

Now, I may need a new GPS because yesterday I ended up going through Darwin and now I am in the North Pole????

Well, I kept on going, hopefully I will arrive where I need to be. I actually was thinking about skipping this part of the ride and just heading east through into Arkansas, as I could see a lot of roads there that need investigating, but I persevered as I am not in a rush 🙂 They have a lot of bridges like these up here.

After Antlers, I head north and along that crappy road surface again, this shows the different levels of the surface I am referring to.

And I saw a lot of these lying around, a bit of a shame really, but I guess with no warning signs around, most people are driving too fast to care!

Then I arrived at the start of today’s ride.

This road was brilliant, I am glad I took the time to ride it, it is full of twisty bits as well as some long sweepers, and the views are excellent.

In these next two you can see the road as it follows the ridge line, it does this for about 30 miles or so 🙂 🙂 🙂

I saw a lot of bikes up this way, I guess it was one of them days even though a Monday 🙂

Back to the fun [G]

There were a lot of scenic views up this way, plenty of places to stop and look.

At one of the stops was a weird old house, it had 9 levels built in it, very quaint.

It was here that I noticed for the first time that my rear tyre is nearly toast! Not much of a life, only 4 weeks and 6000 miles or so, I should be able to scrape in another 1000 miles, but I will have to do a search for a new one soon, maybe a better one than this. It is a great tyre but I guess with my extra load and the miles I do, I need a different type.

I arrive at the Arkansas border, but the road was narrow and nowhere to get a shot of the state welcome sign, I will have to get one later on somewhere, do a U-turn when I leave the state maybe. The road signs are worded different, but the meaning is clear, basically bent and twisted and they were not wrong either 🙂

I mentioned the narrow roads, well I had been hanging out for one of these lay-bys, and I mean busting!

I took this photo, it shows up real clear in this, but in reality, it is very hard to see white writing on a red background when riding past, silly idea but a lot of the street name signs are like this I noticed!

As it was about 3.30pm I headed north from Mena as the atlas showed some nice roads up this way and I decided that Ozark sounds like a nice place to hole up for the night and start looking for a tyre.

I found a nice sort of motel, a bit more than I wanted, but I was still within my budget. There was some initial problems with the internet but I managed to get online eventually. When I asked the forums about my last tyre, I got quite a few replies from the VSRI forum, I went back to that thread because a few people had offered, with enough notice, to get a tyre in and they had the fitting tools. I got some replies to my new help query and also John gave me some advice on a harder wearing tyre. It would not be as sticky as the Metzler Tourance EXP I had on, but you cannot have everything with a bike tyre it seems. Sticky means softer which means quicker wear. I PM’d another member called Vstrom Charlie, as he lives north of where I am about 200 miles, I will have to wait for a response.

I also got a reply from Tank, he said there is a tyre shop in Deals Gap where I will be heading to soon. That was another good option, so I looked up the details and will call them tomorrow. I still have life on it so if I do twisty roads I get to use the edges and not the middle as much 🙂

A quiet night, no pubs within cooee!

Day – 289 miles and 465 km
Trip – 9,394 miles and 15,118 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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