Hi! Noob here.

[RJMirabal]

Dirt and New Mexico were made for each other! Enjoy!

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Sounds good RJ!

I ride the Jemez on a regular basis (being closest to my house) and do the up-and-back to Fenton Lake/fish hatchery (actually one of the best local roads - nice flow, good pavement, a rarity here...), Sandia Crest is ok, the pavement's decent, but a little too "180deg-ish" for me. I've been to Taos a couple different ways, been 518 and 64 into Taos, but that's been a few years and while the road was nice, the pavement was beat to sh!t. 75 thru Dixon was nice, and the pavement decent in spots. 64 West out of Taos looks interesting, but I haven't done that yet. By far my favorite route here is the Devil's Hwy in AZ, too bad it's a PITA just to get there.

I guess I'm kinda spoiled, living on the Front Range in CO from Feb '03 to Aug '18. But, definitely looking forward to finding hidden gems by people that know the roads here better than I! There IS a lot more dirt here to easily access and explore, once I know where they go and how easy/difficult they are, so, that's a plus for NM, and why I bought the KTM in the first place.

[RJMirabal]

Don't worry, we'll show you some sportbike roads, too. Just stay tuned.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Met some cool people (Frank and others) on Sunday, talked to him about riding dirt, so, since I was on the BMW yesterday, thought I'd show some pics of my 2021 trip to Durango/Silverton. Hopefully I can ride with more experienced ADV guys and learn at a good pace without risking riding alone.

Being new to ADV, and riding solo, I got to Animas Forks and chickened out because I had no sense of how much more difficult it would have gotten if I'd tried to ride over Engineer and/or Cinnamon passes. It wasn't too difficult GETTING there, but I started up 9 to the Frisco Mill, and it was all babyheads (at least when I did it, it looks a LOT easier on Google Maps now) and I wasn't comfortable, and turned around. So, AFTER the fact, I get conflicting reports on whether I should have continued. Some people say if I got to Animas Forks it really didn't get any worse so I should have continue, to people saying it's good I stopped there. So, I'd feel a lot more comfortable trying new things if there were people to help (in case of mishaps so far from home), especially if they were familiar with the roads/trails. I ordered an SD card and maps from GPSKevin of the Continental Divide ride, and if I like it, I'll get more from them. I figure NM has TONS of dirt (though sadly, very few good sportbike roads) so, I might as well get my dirt riding in here. Anyways, enjoy!

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

'Morning RJ! I just reserved a room (they had ONE left!) and registered for the rally...except as mentioned in another thread I got a weird error stating they had an issue with my card....but I got pinged on my phone from my card that the $60 had been charged. So, I'm HOPING I'm registered, but have no way to tell. I mean, worse comes to worse I can register there, but then why did my card say it was charged? Either way, I'll see you there. I'm riding the KTM this time (more luggage capacity), and hopefully can get in a bit of local dirt riding while there, that's my goal.

EDIT: The card was declined for some reason, but I just tried again and I got a confirmation screen and my online rolling card statement confirmed the charge, but unfortunately the screen where I could print confirmation disappeared before I could print, but I took a screenshot.

See ya there!

[RJMirabal]

And I'd like to add my "Hello, welcome to the club" message to you, Frank!.... And anyone else who's joined the club recently!

In case you haven't seen our notices about our upcoming rally in Taos, (go to "New Bavarian Mountain Weekend"posting on this Forum), you might want to make plans to attend and get acquainted with the great roads in that area as part of our rally experience!

If you register online by this Wednesday, Aug. 30th, you can save yourself $5. Also, see about reservations at the Sagebrush if possible!

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Nice, thanks for the heads-up! I LOVE the Durango area. Been thru there a bunch of time on my Olde '01 Gixxer 1K (sold for the 'RR), and my KTM, and car. Might just have to do that one.

[LOEBMWR Admin]

Hello Frank (or Cycle Monkey),

Welcome to our MB, glad to see you've already figured out how to upload and post pictures!

Some responses to your informative post....

The club has been doing an annual ride we call the 'Ice Cream Ride' for years, usually in May where we headquarter in Glenwood, NM and do 191 as part of our weekend ride. As you found out, that is one wild and enjoyable road! Be sure to watch for the announcing of our next Ice Cream Ride posted to the MB, the website (LOEBMWR.org) and our Legendary Shaft newsletter which our members receive via email.

Check out our 2023 Durango trip October 6-8 where we'll be doing the loop from Durango through Telluride and the Million Dollar Highway back to Durango. Hotel rooms are only $100 / night at the Siesta.

In addition to our organized rides on the weekends we have lots of people making impromptu rides throughout the week, both slab and ADV rides. Join the club and you'll be more 'in the know' about these and other activities available only to our paid members.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Howdy all! Just joined the club/forum, just gotta send my check in.

Me: I'm 49, been riding "sporty bikes"/sportbikes since '82 with my current mount a '15 S1000RR, living in a variety of states from the SoCal desert (where I started riding) to OH, to ID, to CO (for 17 years), then sadly had to move down here for work in '18. I've found a serious lack of good sportbike roads here, sadly, though I DID recently ride one of the best roads I've ever ridden in the beginning of July, riding down to Silver City from I-25 via 152 (awesome) to get to S/C. Then the next day I did an up-and-back to Alpine AZ via the Devil's Hwy/161 which was, as mentioned one of the best roads I've ever ridden. 93-ish miles of nothing but twisties, little traffic, no cops. Heaven! Just watch for wildlife (almost got me a couple deer and wild turkeys (sadly not the drinkable kind), then there's the gravel in some corners, and some are EXTREMELY tight, blink, decreasing radius corners, so, while I HIGHLY recommend that ride, be careful. 910mi in 3 days, not bad for almost all twisties.

Having wanted to get back into dirt riding (still have my '91 KX500 I bought new in SoCal - for sale) after NOT riding since the early '90's (no place to ride where I lived for years), I picked up a new 2021 KTM ADV R. As I'm still a noob/rusty "dirtbiker", I'm trying not to do anything stupid on that one. For now, I'm looking to do long dirt rides including multi-state rides (with a hotel at the end of the destination each day - I don't camp), but of easy to moderate difficulty. Nothing gnarly if I can avoid it but I have done short gnarly sections that I accidently ran across and made it out alive. LOL I have hard panniers if the ride is to a hotel and using that as a base for day rides from there (like my Durango trip in 2021, but I also have soft panniers for if it's a long ride in the dirt to a different motel each night (haven't done that yet). I have a Garmin Zumo XT mounted, new front tire and rear with lots of tread, so I'm ready to roll! I just got an SD card and maps of the US section of the Continental Divide Ride from GPSKevin and am looking forward to trying those out.

So, as I stumbled across this site by accident after a nice gent at the recent BMW Sandia "Wheels and Coffee" event was kind enough to give me a postcard, here I am. I'm looking for people to ride both street and dirt with, and going on long out of state rides. I'm planning on a UT run in the next couple weeks, 5 or 6 (If I decide to just hang at the hotel in SLC for a mellow day to go to the Ferrari dealer and the Italian market) days, about 2,200miles. I'll be doing the Million Dollar on the way up and back, going thru Gateway CO, some amazing routes I know near SLC, and up thru Logan to Bear Lake one day. If anyone's interested let me know!

Pleased to meetcha!

Frank