This ride was AWESOME! These are the Gila Mountains, about an hour and a half North of Las Cruces, where I live. The roads up there are absolutely phenomenal for bikes. (aside from the non-guardrailed drop-offs of 1000-feet or more.) I decided to call into work today (mainly due to stress of full-time school and full-time work), and decided just to go out riding..........for a while, and ended up in the Gila mountains.

What started out to be a simple, 20-mile ride, turned into an awesome 420-mile trek through the mountains.

Here are a few pics for all to enjoy.



And yeah, in the pic below........that's a 1500-foot drop-off about 5-feet from my bike.......

 

Looks good, you lucky bastard, Awesome scenery. Love those sudden impulse rides, (your map makes me think we could post some pics from where we all live) Good luck cleaning off the bugs .

 

Dang, that looks like fun. BTW, your fender eliminator looks awesome because I like how the turn signals are so far apart. Homemade, or if it's not, what brand?

 

Great pics once again Blue. I was wondering if you actually rode your bike or if it was just dropped off in those shots...then I saw the last pic.

 

Nice pictures. That road looks awesome on google earth, some real nice twisties in there.

 

Damn, that looks like so much fun! I wish I had 420miles of twisties in my backyard, but I live in jersey have to go up to pennsylvania to get some decent riding in. Bet it was a blast. I'd ride that **** every day if it were close to me.

 

Well, it's not really my back yard. The mountains are about an hour and a half ride from my town, Las Cruces. And it's UGLY desert right up until you enter the first bend of the mountains, then you get slapped in the face with the beauty of the mountains. And the bugs are coming off right after this post.


My fender eliminator is completely handmade. The bracket for the licence plate is a "Larry's Fender Eliminator", but is only a bracket to hold the license plate to the exhaust. The rest of it is made by me. Here's a link to the thread where I showed people how I made it.

https://cbrforum.com/m_270104/tm.htm


LOL. Everyone always asks me how I keep my bike so clean when I go on these long trips.......and I'll tell you how. Everytime I stop at a gas station to fill up, I pull out my microfiber cloth and a can of Honda Polish and wipe down the front end.

But to be honest, during the daytime, there really isn't that many bugs out. But on the ride home (at Dusk) I couldn't believe how many bugs there were (AND I wiped off the front end TWICE because they were blocking out my headlight lenses.) Damn bugs.

REAL nice twisties. A little nerve racking the first time (because you're constantly scouting the road for debris, loose gravel, etc. But after I rode it a few times, I was the best road I've been on yet.


Well, it wasn't 420 miles of total twisties. More like 80 miles to get to the twisties, then riding on the 20 miles of twisties there was over and over, back and forth, then another 80 miles to get back home.

I will say one thing. I was riding on the mountain and kind of said to myself "wonder where all the wildlife is?", and I should have kept my mouth shut.

I was riding along one of the longer straights when I was on my way home, and a deer jumped out in front of me (and I was doing about 70 mph). Then another deer jumped out, I slammed, and I mean SLAMMED the brakes HARD, enough to hear the tires chirping. I was still doing about 50 as I flew right between the two, JUST missing them. I took that as a sign to slow the f**k down, even though the speed limit was 65. I immediately thanked God for keeping from that. I would have flipped the bike for sure.