1974 Texas Big Bend National Park Motorcycle Ride - 5-Page Vintage Article

Description

1974 Texas Big Bend National Park Motorcycle Ride - 5-Page Vintage Article
Original, vintage magazine advertisement / article.
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm)
Condition: Good
THE BIG BEND
COUNTRY
B y Frank Conner
Three thousand mites of spectacular mountains and deserts,
punctuated by interesting people. To say nothing of the came! who
wanted to eat the Suzuki's front fender.
Fifteen years have passed since Merle
Vogt and I worked together on San Salva-
dor Island We’d sit in front of our tiny
house in the late afternoon, and look
down into the tinted, transparent Atlantic
Ocean while we sipped our beer and
Merle talked in his high-pitched voice
about his lifelong wanderings through the
Southwestern United States.
One of Merle’s tales had to do with a
rich prospector he'd known in his youth
This prospector had discovered a cinnabar
deposit in one of the yerbas (previous riv-
erbeds) of the Rio Grande while he was
looking around in the Big Bend country
down on the Texas/Mexican border. The
only way he could get to the deposit was
by boat through Boquillas Canyon, a
tricky proposition before they built the
flood-control dams on the Rio Conchos,
the tributary which used to raise so much
hell with the Rio Grande.
The prospector and his partner had
worked the deposit without filing claims
or telling anybody else, smelting the ore
and distilling off the mercury on the spot.
On his trips back to civilization, that pros-
pector had lived high. But then one day he
told Merle, “Well, son, it was a good life,
but me and my partner made a little mis-
take. We sniffed too many of them fumes
while we was cooking the mercury. My
partner kicked off last month, and the doc-
tor says I’ll be dead three months from
now. You win some and you lose some,
but who’da thought that just standin’
around a mercury still could do it to you?”
The prospector was dead within three
months. Years later, Merle had spent a lot
of time camping in the Big Bend country,
fighting the awful dirt roads and trails with
his trusty old station wagon. On San Sal-
vador he told me about the wild, haunting
beauty of the Chisos Mountains (Spanish
for “Ghost”).
Since then I have spent a lot of my spare
time following Merle’s ramblings. But al-
though I had started out in that direction
several times, until this ride, I never quite
made it to the Big Bend National Park in
Southwest Texas.
It was a good day in October. While
loading the Suzuki GT550, I watched the
surfers catching rides on the four-foot
swells breaking against the deserted
beach. The ocean was acting like heavy
oil—calm and smooth and deliberate.
Loading the Suzuki was pretty easy. I
had borrowed a luggage rack from Triple
A Accessories, and the pack was small
enough to hold on the rack with bungee
cords. Most of my stuff went into the dis-
colored old Gerry day-pack. It held shav-
inggear, underwear, a sweater, a shirt, and
a pair of jeans. Since it was late in the year,
1 threw in skiing underwear and gloves,
and motocross socks, for insurance. The
pack should also have carried some extra
tools and spare parts, but I decided to see
if I could get away with just the standard
tool kit and a can of chain lube.
Atop the pack went the bulky two-piece
Full-Bore rainsuit, for heavy weather. 1
tucked away a couple of quarts of Suzuki
CCI lube in handy hollows behind the
bungee cords, and that was the load.
It was enough to sustain me easily for a
month of riding, assuming that I stayed in
motels along the way. and didn't get the
urge to attend any formal church wed-
dings en route.
I don’t like to load a motorcycle like a
two-wheel moving van. It kills my sense of
freedom, turns the bike into a wind-
catcher, and usually unbalances the al-
ready-tricky weight-distribution of the
machine. So 1 dispense with camping gear
and cooking equipment, and I live in my
leathers. For this trip I was wearing a pair
of chestnut-colored rough-out leather
pants, with creases sewn in. The green
leather jacket was cut racing-shirt style,
with a minimum of visible zippers and no
ornaments. These leathers, made for me
several years ago by Clarice Amberg of
ABC Custom Leathers, are comfortable
on or off a motorcycle, and during trips 1
take them off only al night.
1 took a last look at the ocean, watching
a surfer wipeout spectacularly, and then
touched the starter button on the Suzuki.
Blurble, rumble, blurble.
The GT 550 is a big bike, and 1 hadn't
had time to get to know this one before
starting the trip. While threading my way
through the streets of Manhattan Beach, I
felt clumsy when cornering slowly.
Around-town riding would take some get-
ting used to. But the big question in my
mind was the freeways. How would the
bike handle rain grooves, winds and pass-
ing trucks?
At the freeway entrance-ramp I hung
the throttle against the slop. Wow! For a
louring bike, (if that's what this machine
was; I hadn't asked Suzuki) it would accel-
erate smartly. On the eight-lane monster
highway 1 experimented with revs and ra-
tios in the five-speed gearbox. No prob-
lem. In fifth gear al 70 mph, the bike was
comfortably into the lower part of the
wide powerband. For ordinary passing...
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