| Author | Message | ||
     Griffmeister |
Well, maybe not that epic and technically doesn't start until morning, but I'm mostly packed and ready to go. Going to a training class in Antioch TN with a coworker, we were thinking about taking the bikes and have been watching the extended forecasts for a week. Finally decided it looked good enough to go. Class starts Monday so we're hoping it'll be a leisurely ride down if we take two days, looks to be about 1100 miles from central CT. No GPS needed for the ride down, only two turns. Take I84 to Scranton PA, turn left onto I81 and follow to Knoxville TN and finally turn right onto I40 and get off in Mt Juliet where the hotel is. If we can get past the halfway point by Saturday night, then Sunday should be a breeze. I don't believe we run into a lot of metropolitan areas on this route so things should (don't jinx it) go smoothly. I was tempted to take the bike by the suggestion that the return ride includes Deals Gap. Guess I got suckered into this easy enough. Hope I can post up tomorrow night saying that we are on schedule. Also looking forward to some TN BBQ, resistance is futile, there goes all my willpower shot right out the window. | ||
| Aesquire |
Enjoy & be paranoid about deer. Lovely scenery over most of the trip. Don't forget to stop at rest stops & scenic overlooks and walk around. ( if you drink enough fluids you will anyway )  | ||
| Etennuly |
I40 go straight through Knoxville, Sunday will be good, don't bother with Knox 640 loop. The most busy areas will be as you blend onto 40 from 81, and on the West side of Knoxville. Watch for potholes on 40 mostly on seams between lanes. If you can work it in, do the loop across the Cherohala, Tellico Tn to Robbinsville NC, then back across the Dragon. It is worth the extra half day.  I will watch this thread if timing is right  .....I could maybe get into that! | ||
| Ratbuell |
if you're needing rest or tools or anything when you're near Hagerstown MD (where 81 crosses 70), I (and my garage) are about 20 minutes away. Door's always open to Buellers | ||
| Two_seasons |
Us "older" riders seem to do the epic trips. Next year, fast approaching, I will be almost 63 years old then, my brother Dan and I will be riding Western Colorado, Utah, and maybe a little of Arizona. I taught him about bikes back when he was 10 years old. Even put him on my then Kawasaki 400 motocross and let him run it out on a track. He now owns two HD's, a 1999 Dyna Wide Glide and a 2016 Road King. I'll be taking either my 1996 Thunderbolt S2T or my 1999 X1 Lightning. Camping with a couple of motels mixed in for a balance of clean/comfort. Should work out to be about a 5,800 mile trip as I will get with family in Idaho and Washington before heading back. I wish you a grand adventure  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Geesh! Were you trying to kill him?!?! I bet he had a LOT of fun though. | ||
| Tootal |
Have a great ride! My brother and I head out tomorrow to Colorado for two weeks. It's the second half of last years trip where I shattered my heel! I've been told to stay on the bike and do not hike! Evidently I can ride much better than I can walk! Jeep trails here we come! | ||
| Zac4mac |
Greg and 2-seasons, if y'all are near Denver, try and swing by the shop - NRHS in Berthoud, CO. Would be great to meet/see again. Zack | ||
| 86129squids |
Griff- if you end up rolling through Maryville TN/Deal's Gap/Cherohala, let me know... Foothills Milling Company restaurant or their new bakery is a required stop! For BBQ, Bread of Heaven (a trailer in Big Lots parking lot) or Full Service BBQ are killer. In Tellico Plains, Tellico Grains Bakery does great work, including wood-fired pizza!  | ||
| Two_seasons |
Reepi: "were you trying to kill him? No, but Dad would have killed me if he had known. Thanks Zac. I'll try to stop by. (Message edited by two_seasons on September 10, 2016) | ||
| Two_seasons |
Hey Zac: didn't know your business was just off Hwy 287. One of my favorite roads out west  | ||
| Tootal |
Hey Zac! We have no real plans except to enter in the South at Colorado Springs and zig zag West hitting some dirt roads and end up in Durango where we will head up to Silverton and go over either Cimarron or Engineer Pass to Lake City. Then Telluride to Utah and Moab. Across the center and then wiggle up to Ft. Collins on Poudre Canyon. We have plenty of time so we might make it over before we head further North. | ||
| Griffmeister |
Boy, I thought this was the most direct route you could take. One mile from home and I come to a fork in the road. Luckily it was a small plastic fork and I got around it easy enough. Ten minutes later and I run into a rain shower. At least it was short but it took half the day to dry out. Well, we got as far as Lexington VA which is past the halfway point so tomorrow looks good. I must say that after today I am a huge, wait, make that YUGE fan of IDS products. I had some running issues with my original ECM. I put the IDS one in last week and what a difference. It idles right, has no dead spot and was getting gas mileage of about 48 mpg. The most I ever got before was 44 mpg. I like it. Hopefully tomorrow I,ll be checking in from Mt Juliet. | ||
| Two_seasons |
You berry funny man  | ||
| Zac4mac |
I used to live on 287, just south of Loveland, CO. Drove to Texas for a visit and while at my cousin's house in Austin he asked where i lived now. I told him to turn right on 287 and drive for 1138.3 miles and turn left into my driveway. Z | ||
| Two_seasons |
x2 Yeah, I knew it went from TX to MT. I look forward to meeting you. | ||
| Griffmeister |
What a nice day, it was cooler and we just missed the last shower that rolled through. Just one problem, apparently yesterday there was a very popular college football game near Roanoke between TN and VA that drew thousands of fans. Guess what they did today? Headed home in all their cars, trucks, campers and RV's turning the highways into parking lots. It wasn't too bad until about fifty miles north of Knoxville when it became stop and go. It was time for gas so we pulled off to stretch and fill, gave us a chance to check a traffic report. Well, there were accidents both north and south of the city, pretty much made a mess of everything. One way or another we had to get there and we both hate traffic, so I set up my GPS which has traffic avoidance and let it do it's stuff. Ended up on 11W down to the bypass, then got off again and headed through Oakridge. Except for a few traffic light clusters, most of the ride through Oakridge and beyond were fantastic. No traffic and nice roads, it was almost a shame when we had to get on I40 at the end. So, we got to Mt Juliet two hours later than expected, but it was still daylight and a lot less stressful. Here's the cool part, while we were at the gas/minimart contemplating our dilemma five guys on adv bikes come up from the side road to fuel up. Turns out they were heading home to Ohio after spending a week doing various loops through the Great Smokey Mtns, including the Dragon. Unfortunately one of their members got wiped out by a Porsche that drifted over the line. Luckily he survived with a minor concussion and was able to ride home with someone else that trailered down, but the bike was totaled. Anyhow, we talked with them a while and mentioned that we wanted to hit the Dragon later in the week. One of them pulled out a touring map from the area and gave it to me to keep saying it was full of nice loops from as far west as Chattanooga to as far east as Spartanburg and well north into VA. I just thought that was really something, here we are hanging out trying to figure out traffic and along come a bunch of guys that don't know us from Adam and yet are willing to share their adventure. That helped keep the spirit up. | ||
| 86129squids |
Holy Crap- that was the "Battle At Bristol", a big whooptedoo football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the West Virginia Hokies- they said there were 151,900 folks in attendance. Not to mention the thousands that probably huddled in the perimeter, not able to pay hundreds of dollars to "watch" a game that one couldn't see without the best binoculars available. They built a football field in the middle of Bristol Speedway- Neyland Stadium barely filled less than half the area/volume of the structure. Not my cuppa tea... I see drunk people.  NO FRICKIN WAY you could even pay me to go. Well, everything has its price, and I'm sure Peyton and co. had a skybox. Meh. I got home after work to watch the remainder of the game on my couch, with my honey and the dogs, and a fully stocked fridge and stuff. It ended up being a good game, but- meh. Glad to hear of your successful detour around the meats- I had thought about the game, but misjudged your timing for coming through. Whenever there's a UTK game, just avoid driving around here at all costs, unless it's LATE or EARLY. Or just stay home. Lived here in the Knoxville area since 1990, learned that pretty quick! Be safe heading home- I'm guessing it'll be at the end of the week. I'll not be around- gotta vacay a bit, until later next week. Do try to make it to the Cherohala if you can, Deal's Gap will be VERY busy, VERY dangerous. Go <early> if you have to. Try to budget time to roll through W NC back home- but that may be excessive. Rubber side down!!!!  | ||
| Chauly |
Brad, Brad, Brad... That would be Virginia Tech, not West Virginia. I work with people to whom thems would be fightin' words! I think it was 154,000 beating the record attendance by 20%! | ||
| 86129squids |
Oh well- I was such a puny kid, I never got to do "sticks and balls" type sports. Had allergies and asthma- got into 2 wheeled everything, speed skating, and footbag. As a result, it's like a language and culture completely foreign to me. I do enjoy a good game, wish I could've played back in the day... I do remember my junior high PT/coach wanting me to try out, I could sprint like the wind. But then the inhaler comes out, 1 hit, 2 hits... "Fantasy Football"? I understand Pig Latin better! And yes, my old boss/buddy would give me heck for mis-naming Virginia Tech... Youn's have fun with all that. | ||
| Griffmeister |
Ah, the best laid plans... Well, today's half day class turned into a full day. Speaking of class,there were only six of us and one of the guys owns a 99 Lightning. Besides that it seems like a lot more people around here are familiar with Buell. Back home everybody's like "what's that?". We still want to do Jack Daniels so we headed down to Tullahoma for the night. Could be an ambitious day tomorrow, we'll see how far we get. Hopefully get the first tour then head to Robbinsville. With any luck we'll hit the roads we want and be in VA by early evening. Time will tell. | ||
| Etennuly |
Rodrun! Any where near Severville or Gatlinburg will be crazy busy. Stop and go for hours. Stay away from 66, 441, 321, I 40 near 407 exit. | ||
| 1313 |
Rodrun! Went to that 2 years ago when I was in the area for work. What an experience to take in. I think I walked like 10 miles looking at all the cars before I had to leave to catch my plane. But yeah, the congestion would definitely irk moto-travelers trying to make time! 1313 | ||
| Griffmeister |
Well that was a long but fun day. Was able to get in the first JD tour at 9:30 which was a really good tour with a little (very little) sampling at the end. Never had it before but I think I could get hooked on Fireball. The tour finished at 11 and we headed to the Dragon. I thought we were going to take the Cherohola out but we ended up on 74 the whole way out to 129. Finally got to Deals Gap just after 5:30. It would have been 4:30 but there was some kind of twilight zone between Lynchburg and there. An interesting thing happened when we got there. There was a lady walking through the parking lot taking pictures and talking to people. When she got to me she started to tell me that the group she was with was developing a smartphone app for motorcycles that was kind of like Onstar. She started to hand me a card until she saw my antique smartphone and said maybe that wouldn't work and kept the card. We still talked about riding and she asked where we came from and how were the roads there. I told her that CT was fine if you stayed away from the cities but sometimes we go into upstate NY and I pointed out my ADK Buell Rally t-shirt that I just happened to be wearing. This perked her up and she said they were working with Erik Buell himself on putting together an up to date story on him and his company. She got a picture of me with my bike and said she was sharing all her pictures with him. I don't know how much faith to put in her story but it sounded interesting. Wish I had grabbed the card anyhow, I would have been able to follow up on their website. Well, after that I got some pictures of the "tree", bought a sticker, got gas and we headed out. This ended up being the perfect time (almost) to hit the Dragon. By 6:00, the sun was low, the temperature was cooler and there was practically no one on the road. The only bad thing was a couple of spots had bad sun glare. Lost sight of the road but regained vision just in time. Being my first time there it was kind of intimidating. I wish I could have stayed longer to learn the road better, guess I'll have to try for a second ride down. The damn time zones suck, really put a damper on progress today. At least we almost made it to Bristol, we'll see how close we come to home tomorrow. | ||
| Griffmeister |
And so it ends. Friday ended up being one long day, at least it was nice and cool. Left Kingsport, TN in the morning and by dusk we were just outside Scranton, PA on I84 for the last leg. My coworker checks his phone and says "there's only two and a half hours to go, let's finish this". Yeah, okay, so we forge on. Well, here's where the approximately thirty year age difference between us rears it's ugly head. By the time we reached Danbury I waved him on and got off for a late night dinner. I really needed that break so I could stretch out on a cushy seat that wasn't moving. That made the last fifty minutes much easier, even if it was after midnight when I got home. Well, it ended up being quite the week and I got to see a lot more of the country than I thought I would. Someday I'll have to return. | ||
| Zac4mac |
Nothing in my experience can top a good Road Trip. The more epic, the better. My best was a 5 week trip thru Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Cali, Oregon, Washington, B.C. Canada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming then home in Ft, Collins. Summer of 1987. Greg stopped by the shop yesterday, and we talked for a good 10 minutes before I realized who he was. We first met at Homecoming 2010. He took off on a short ride I suggested and when he got back I took him to A&W for a burger and root beer. Thanks Greg, high point of my week! Z | ||
| Tootal |
Hey Zac! I made it home yesterday. I started taking 36 across but all the little towns have dried up and finding gas started making me nervous so I had to drop down to I-70 to find fuel. I then decided to just banzai the interstate. I made Hays and enjoyed a nice dinner and beers at the brewery there. Made Kansas City the next day and stayed with some old friends. It was really good to see you again and I'm glad we finally figured out where we had met before! I had a beard when we first met so that probably threw you off! Anyway, thanks again for lunch and I really enjoyed our conversation. You're doing nice work! Cheers! | ||
| Zac4mac |
Greg - my android tablet got a shot of you in the shop, I will try to retrieve it. Here's a shot of the group at Holy Hill in 2010.  | ||
| Tootal |
Wow, I haven't seen that shirt in a long time, must be at the bottom of a drawer! | ||
| Tootal |
 I thought that shot looked familiar! I took a lot of pictures of the church and from in the tower. Neat place! |
