Our annual Spring Hill Country ride is a gathering of British & European vintage motorcycles centered around the Historic Leakey Inn in Leakey, TX.

Hill Country 2020
by Dennis Tackett

This year we had another annual hill country trip. It was anything but the usual event. First, we delayed it a month due to Covid19 so instead of the end of April it was the end of May. Moving the event and the on-going virus saw a low turn out compared to other years. Instead of the usual 100+ it was 36. We decided to do what we have done in past years by riding modern bikes down then switching to vintage when we arrived. Our favorite world-famous pin-striper Alton would trailer the vintage bikes down and meet us in Leakey. Chris could not get off work early so he and Monica would drive down Thursday night hauling a trailer full of bikes. I was anxiously watching the weather forecast the week before we left as it was calling for 80% rain. It however cleared up and called for 20%. This would turn out to be another weatherman lie.

The four of us left the little house early Thursday morning. I was riding Clay’s newly purchased 2019 Triumph Tiger for our maiden voyage. I would be visited by the ghost of Clay twice on the trip down. Clay was famous for dropping bikes and breaking miscellaneous body parts. I was joined by Ryan on his Yamaha, Richard on his BMW, and Mike on his Ducati. We were taking George’s favorite route down using all the back roads with a minimum of super slabs.

The first half of the ride was uneventful, and we stopped at our favorite BBQ joint, Cooper’s in Llano. We continued headed south through Fredericksburg headed to Kerrville. Just outside of Kerrville a massive storm blew up out of nowhere. The wind and rain were so bad all the cars were pulling off the road. We did the same and just about the time I came to a stop a huge gust of wind blew me over on the bike. This would be Clay’s first ghostly visit. Ryan helped me pick up my machine and we waited for the torrential rain to subside. We were soaked through and decided to stop in Kerrville to dry off and have a few libations. We were able to continue and had to stop for gas in Hunt. As we were pulling into the station, I hit a lip of concrete twisting the bars out of my hands and dropping the bike again! Clay’s visit #2. We finally reached Leakey and peeled out of our wet clothes.

Friday we were all chomping at the bit to ride the vintage bikes and decided to do all three twisted sisters. I was on my T140 Chromium Cruiser 2, my buddy Scot was on the original Chromium Cruiser, Chris and Monica were on their T140, Mike was on his T140, and Richard was on his newly restored Vincent Black Shadow. Ryan decided to sit it out because all his gear was still soaked. We left Leakey and headed west on 337. Unfortunately, Scot had to stop on the way due to a loose battery cable. After gassing up at Camp Wood we rode north on 335, east on 41 then south on 336. We stopped for lunch in Leakey then headed east on my favorite part of 337.

Saturday found us once again on 337 going to the Lone Star Motorcycle Museum. Richard switched rides to his newly acquired Triumph big bore 1000cc triple. I had a hard time keeping up with that beast! After our stop at the museum we decided to go to a very eclectic lunch spot called Hippie Chic’s. This called for making a low water crossing on the bikes which was fun. However, when we came to the second water crossing it was deemed too high, so we had to detour around. We had a nice lunch and headed back to Leakey. All the vintage bikes did wonderfully on Saturday with no break downs. Sunday, we headed north once again on the modern bikes. We had an uneventful trip home.

In spite of the haunting of Clay I loved the 2019 Tiger and look forward to many more epic trips on it.

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If you have any photos of the event please send them to webmaster@ntnoa.org