Mototrip with the Other Half

Since my most recent trip was rather cool, I feel that it should preface the actual upcoming trip. I am currently sick and have nothing else better to do, so I will accelerate the process of sharing this trip with you guys. Someone also requested pictures from my recent October 2014 trip so they will be included in here as well. Images from my older March 2014 trip can be found in my older posts on here.

So without further ado, here we go.

My wife and I live in Jacksonville, FL. If you want a decent road, you will have to road trip it for quite a while before you get to anything interesting. Being that it is Florida, many of the roads here are going to be straight, vast expanses of level ground. As someone so eloquently put it on SVrider.com; "Florida's Tail of the Dragon...11 turns in 318 miles." As sad as it is, I could not agree more with whoever said that. I wanted to test my wife's mettle, so we packed up the bikes and headed up north. It was pretty cold when we left, but nothing we had not dealt with before.  Temperatures might have been in the low 40's when we set off. It warmed up nicely as the sun came up though. Of course there was the obligatory stop at Chikfila for breakfast and coffee. Our check in point was a place called Whitewater Express. We had stayed there on a previous trip and really liked it, so when we saw the groupon for them again, we had to take advantage. It's right on the southern Tennessee/North Carolina border. 

It took us about 8.5 hours to get up there. No problems whatsoever, which is always a good thing. Our stay this time around was going to be very short, so if we wanted to knock out the dragon, we had to do it the same day as the trip up there. That meant humping it 8.5 hours, checking in, unpacking at the cabin, then jumping back on the bikes for another 1.5 hours to get to Deal's Gap. Since my wife was on unfamiliar roads, she took her sweet time and it took us much longer than anticipated to actually reach the dragon. An oversight on my part, I suppose. We finally reach the start of US129 around 6 pm and my wife is already kind of panicky just from the roads to get there. I told her if she could tackle the roads earlier, she would do just fine. Just look through your corners and avoid target fixation at all costs. 

We set off and I realize it is slow going right away. Those that have been on this road know that bikes will literally eat it up and it's super fun to ride on. Since my wife was spooked to begin with, there was no spirited-ness about this jaunt at all. There were a few times where we had to use the pull-offs so CARS could pass us by. I started to get frustrated, which rather kills the mood for both of us. Just before the overlook to the gap we were lucky enough to catch the Killboy photographer as he was packing up. We were the last set of bikes he got shots of before he took off. After getting to the overlook, we get off so my wife can relax a bit and I can be grumpy. She managed to get one of the funniest pictures while we were waiting to get back on the road.

Also, as the trip was short, you can see that our packing set-up was quite light. We were also wearing backpacks for stuff we wanted to keep on our person the whole time. We get back on the dragon headed north so we can finish it out. I take off because I was getting antsy. I reach the end and it's nearly a full five minutes before my wife comes petering down the road. We still have to go back to the cabin for the night and I was hoping we would make it back before the sun went down and it got cold. Maaaaaaannnn was I wrong about that one. Due to everything taking much longer than anticipated, the sun was almost already down by the time we finished 129 going south. My wife wanted to get a picture with the metal dragon they have there at the resort and we were going to get some stickers, but the gift shop had closed maybe 15 minutes before we got there. I will make a note to get her some on this upcoming trip.

Aside from the cold and riding for probably a solid 12-13 hours that first day, I'd say we did pretty stinking well. Both bikes performed admirably and operated without a hitch. The rest of the trip consisted of whitewater rafting on the Ocoee river and paintball on a mountain side. We also made an aside to Nantahala Outdoor Center for dinner one night as well. As always, Killboy knocked our action shots out of the park!!!

The trip back took us a bit longer. We stopped at a gas station after we had gotten out of the mountains in order to do a spot check with maintenance, lube the chains, check oil levels, etc, etc. Since we take very good care of our steeds to begin with, they treated us just as well on this trip. Neither bike needed much of anything aside from a spray of lubricant on the chain. After a quick breakfast and coffee at Dunkin Donuts, we scooted on back to Jacksonville in roughly 9.5 hours.

This next trip will be done all by my lonesome again, but I don't mind the solitude at all. Ever since becoming a teacher, silence and time to myself is something that is hard to come by. I wonder if I will appreciate the upcoming tour more so because of that fact. We shall see!

Mototrip Round 3: Another Trip to the Mountains

...this time with friends!!!

For those that followed last year, you know I took my first big solo motorcycle trip up to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. I was able to score a pretty decent deal on a fairly nice hotel in Gatlinburg, so I had to take advantage. Due to scheduling the trip in the middle of March, the weather turned out to be quite gloomy. The weekend before it had actually snowed there! On the way up it was absolutely beautiful, but the day I actually romped around and my entire trip back were done entirely in the rain. This lead to some technical problems which lead a 9 hour trip turning into a 12 hour trip. Either way, it was a successful trip and I came back knowing more about my limits and the limits of my bike, Jarvis.

Trip number 2 came in October with my wife. This trip was also extremely cold due to being scheduled later in the year. The trek was originally planned for whitewater rafting but after looking at the map, I noticed our cabin site was not too far off from deals gap. It took little convincing of my wife to agree to take the bikes and make an aside when we got up there. Since it was still "in season", we were excited to get our pictures taken by Killboy and whatever other photographers might be camped out along the famous 129. Now don't get me wrong, I love the fact that my wife rides a motorcycle and I applaud her for attempting the Tail of the Dragon after a VERY long trip up, but let's just say that our passes weren't nearly as spirited as one would expect. The temperature probably played a fairly large role in her behavior. I now know she is not that type of rider and I am completely OK with that, but when a group of bikes is slowing down car traffic where motorcycles should eat up the road, you know something is amiss. It doesn't matter though!!! Her little '92 GS500E handled the trip like a champ and didn't skip a beat the entire time. There was one little scare where she thought she was running out of gas with not an exit in sight, but that was just a one-off. Another successful trip there and back, complete with white-water rafting and paintball!

Enter trip number three. This is being organized by a friend of mine that is local to Jacksonville. He has never been and neither have many guys from our local riding group, so a Facebook group was made and the ball was started rolling on a big trip up north. There are a few guys (maybe 1 other now that I think about it) that have been on these roads, but that was nearly 20 years ago. A lot of things have changed since then. A LOT. Because of the greenhorn status of the majority of the group, I found myself being an invaluable asset to the group, regardless of if I go or not. Because this new trip is scheduled in a nearly identical time frame as my trip last year (this one is the 26-29th), I immediately raised concerns about the weather. Even though was are only just getting through February, I can already say this winter has been extremely bipolar and temper-mental. Warm one day, freezing the next day, rain for a week after that, back to freezing, then maybe a few clear days after that. I would not be surprised if snow was still on the ground again in some areas once we get up there.

Riding skill was another thing that concerned me. Our group consists of competent riders. All have had their spills and hopefully have learned from them. The thing that I do not think will translate well with the others is no matter how skilled they are down here in the flatness of Florida, nothing down here can really prepare you for a REAL mountain road. There are a lot of things you can get away with here in Florida. There really are no hills to negotiate and engine braking is really only for those that  have done their research about it. I can't speak for others in the group, but I have noticed a lot of riders in this state that seem to pull the clutch and coast to a stop before getting their gear position sorted out. Where we are going, engine braking and not riding the brakes is a necessity,as well as looking through your turns, adjusting body position, and staying focused. A plan has been worked out if someone does go down, but hopefully it will not have to be put into action.

We will be staying in Fontana Village. Looking at the map, it appears to be on Moonshiner 28. That means I actually passed this place during my first trip. It probably went unnoticed due to all the freaking rain I was having to deal with. Some will be riding up (such as myself) and others will be trailering. I am actually rather excited about this. It is a solid group of guys and I know we're going to have a lot of fun. The actual duration of the trip will also be extended. We will have 2 days to romp around instead of my usual one that I've had before. That means we can take our time and I can actually slow down and take a look at stuff. Since there will actually be 4 wheeled vehicles present, that also means I won't have to ride EVERYWHERE like I had to before. Let me tell ya, I love my bike and all, but after a long day of riding sometimes you do wish you had a car around when it's time to get some food.

I will update stuff as it comes along for this trip. It will be happening in roughly a month, so there should be plenty of content for me to put out for your reading pleasure. Feel free to take a look at my previous entries and take a gander at my videos from my first trip. My videography was not very good then and I am hoping to make a much better highlight video this time around now that I won't be rushing everywhere.

Thanks for tagging along and feel free to comment or give advice on things you might deem important!