Rip’s Bad Ride

I volunteer this year as a committee member for the Rip’s Bad Ride which was a great experience. this is the second year for the ride, that started from three locations in and around Houston and ended up at the HAAUG Stop.

I started from the San Jacinto Harley-Davidson location. I got there around 10:00 AM and help set up the booth San Jacinto Harley-Davidson was having an open house to raise money for the Lone Star Rally. Ike did A lot of damage to Galveston Island and I’m surprised that the rally will be still there, coming this year in October.

We still had a good turn out despite Ike’s wrath on the Houston area and i had a great time and the weather was great!

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Product Review - Spot

Spot Satellite Personal Tracker

Spot is satellite messenger that transmit your location and status to your friends, family and if needed to an emergency center. This is a very cool ideal and would be great for some of the trips I take, where there is no phone service and I could get help if needed. Also the tracking would be great letting for my friends and family know how I was doing and where I was at on my trip.

I got the Spot just in time for my Bandera trip. There would be a few remote areas and it would be great to test out.

The results were great with a few exceptions. The unit is small and has a clip for your belt and was comfortable. The double A batteries worked all weekend without replacing them. The OK button worked and sent an email & text message to Crystal my daughter (Emergency Contact) with no problems. The tracking worked great, but the web site had some problems for some of my friends and family could not get any info. Spot does state the the web site is beta, so I hope it get better in the future. I was not able to test the 911 or the help button. In the future I will test the Help button. I hope I never have to use the 911 button.

Check the Where? Button at the top of this web site to see where I’m at.

Over all the Spot wok great! I would recommend it to anyone.

Some things I would like to see added or modified:

It would be nice to a have mount for the motorcycle.

A button just for the tracking.

To be able to embed the tracking map in my personal web page.

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Bandera With The Star Riders Day 4

Our last day in Bandera, we headed out around 8AM and stopped at Denny’s in Boerne for breakfast.

We hopped on Hwy 46 till Seguin and stayed on Hwy 90 all the way to Columbus. It was Hwy I-10 the rest of the way back to Houston.

A nice easy ride back home and a great weekend in the Hill Country.

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Bandera With The Star Riders Day 3

I hung out with Ripley, Paul, Berk, Kathy, and Katie. We followed Ripley to Leakey, Camp Wood and then did a loop up around Rocksprings, down to Brackettville and back up to Leakey to have lunch at the Freo Canyon Motorcycle Stop.

In between Rocksprings and Brackettville we run in to hundreds of yellow butterflies. I have never seen so many flying together. A lot of then ended up dead on the front of our motorcycles. It was pretty cool to see wile we were stopped.

After lunch we headed back to the motel. I stopped at the local car wash in Bandera to was off the hundreds of dead butterflies stuck to my motorcycle.

Thanks Ripley fro leading our wonderful ride today!

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Bandera With The Star Riders Day 2

We started our day with breakfast at the OST Restaurant in Bandera. Afterwards headed to wards Tarpley, Then up through Vanderpool and stop at the Lost Maples State Park. I stayed around and did some hiking on one of their trails. There were plenty of maple trees to see.

I caught up with the group for lunch at Billy Gene’s Restaurant in Kerrville after I stopped in Ingram to check out the dam and the Dam Store.

After the good lunch we headed over to The Western Museum Of Western Art. If you like museums, it is worth the stop.

On the way back to the motel, Steve and I stopped at Koyote Ranch Near Medina to check out the place for future place to stay next time we come out the hill country. they have great cabins and it would be wonderful place to stay.

After we got back to the River Front Motel rest of the group had arrived from Houston. Later everybody decided to walk up to the OST Restaurant for dinner.

Great day for riding!

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Bandera With The Star Riders Day 1

Headed to Bandera around 1:00 PM. I took the direct route there on I-10. It was an easy ride with some great weather. Arrived in Bandera at the River Front Motel at 4:30 PM. Came in 15 min behind the group that left at 10:00 AM (They took the long route).

After getting cleaned up and some relaxing. We decided to grab dinner at the China Bowl on Main street. Steve, Roy & CJ headed over to the China Bowl, I waited on Kat and Teann, when we headed to the China Bowl I went through the intersection at Main and Hwy 16 and Kat and Teann got caught with a red light. Kat’s bike rear tired slipped and she laid her bike down. Kat ended up with a black eye and a bruised side. Her bike got a few scratches and a bent engine guard. An hour later we got to the China Bowl.

Dinner was good and no other excitement for the rest of the evening.

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