This ride started at 6:00AM on Thursday the same way it ended at 11:00PM on Sunday, dressed in cold weather gear. The rest of the four days these items stayed packed in the motorcycle because it was HOT!
I had to go to a meeting in Columbus and I was running a little early so I stopped at McDonalds to have a Sausage McGriddle. These are delightful little sandwiches. These are just like eating pancakes and sausage but you don’t need any silverware! I was sure hoping that the meeting would end early, but it went for the full two and a half hours. When the meeting ended it was already hot outside. I had made great time to Columbus averaging 66MPH and I actually had no problems with traffic the whole four days. I took 70 out of Columbus and picked up 75 south. I just could not figure out why nothing looked familiar and kept checking the GPS but it kept telling me I was right on track. It wasn’t until I got to Cincinnati that I realized that this is not the usual way I get to Cincinnati. I usually take 71.
Cincinnati welcomed me with a temperature of 100 degrees. I think that riding in extreme heat is worse than riding in extreme cold. I think 82 degrees is the perfect temperature for riding a motorcycle. If the temperature goes up 20 degrees from there you are miserable. If the temperature drops 20 degrees down to 62 you put on a light jacket and have a great ride.
For a long time I have wanted to ride Rt. 116 in Tennessee. I was not planning on going all the way into the gap on this first day so I decided it would be a great time to check the road out. There are so many roads that people talk about and say they are great roads and I am very often disappointed in them when I get to ride them. I don’t know if I just expect too much from them or if they really are not anything special, but 116 did not disappoint me.
This is not a road that I would want to run real hard. There are quite a few difficult switchbacks that beginning riders would probably have a real hard time with. The ones that are the hardest are the right hand up hill switchbacks. They really are not all that hard if you go into them prepared for them. I think what causes most people to drop their bikes in these types of turns is not being prepared for them. If you enter the turn in too high of a gear the bike will bog down trying to climb the steep hill and when you loose that gyroscopic force that you get from forward motion while you are turning the bike so sharply you end up on your butt. If you are uncertain about these types of turns you should slow way down before you start the turn. Go just fast enough that the bike balances itself and is not shaky. Put the bike in first gear and give it just enough throttle to maintain your speed throughout the turn. If you do this the turn will be a piece of cake.
The west side of 116 goes right past Brushy Mountain State Prison. Bushy Mountain was the first modern penitentiary built in Tennessee. In 1891 there was a labor dispute because prisoners were being used as unpaid labor in the coal mines. The coal miners protested this and won and the result was that the convict labor system was abolished and Brushy Mountain State Prison opened in 1896. James Earl Ray served time in this prison and actually escaped from it in 1977, but he was recaptured three days later.
The town of Petros is located in this area and I could not help but think that this town looked like a darn pleasant place to live. As I rode 116 I saw several kids hanging out and playing in the stream and I wondered if these kids knew how good of a life they were living. It is obvious that many of the people who live in this area are not wealthy people, but I don’t think they mind their lack of material wealth too much. I don’t think you need fancy cars and fancy homes when you live in paradise.
My next goal for the first day of the ride was the Oak Ridge K-25 complex. This was part of the Manhattan Project and K-25 was where the Uranium 235 to make the first nuclear bombs was produced. The K-25 building is one half mile long and 1,000 feet wide. The entire facility used 1/7 of all the electricity produced in the entire United States! I have to say that it was kind of humbling to stand at the site and think about the thousands of people who worked there in secrecy.
I left K-25 once it became too dark to really see anything and headed for my motel. If there is any radiation leakage it does not appear to be harming the insect population. The bugs were so thick it was just unreal. I arrived at Motel 6 in West Knoxville and found it full of bikers. The lobby was just full of people paying for their rooms. To make matters worse, the guy behind the counter kept getting phone calls from his wife. Apparently he did something stupid and she kept calling and they kept fighting about it.
Once I got settled in I got serious about finding something to eat. People always make fun of Ben down at the Gap because he put Crystal stickers on his motorcycle. I never really knew what Crystal was but on this night I discovered it was a fast food place. I figured I might as well try it out. I am really not going to give a full review of the place but I will say this. The stuff they serve is just like food only smaller. I have never been one to be too impressed with small food. I totally prefer big food.
Friday morning I was on the road at 7:00AM. It was only a 50 mile ride to the Gap and before I knew it I was on the overlook. I was early enough to see the turkeys that I see every morning and I was glad the hunters had not got them all. I figured these turkeys did not seem to be too smart since they stand around in the middle of the road every morning, but I guess you are not allowed to shoot across a road so it probably is the safest place there is for them!
Traffic on the gap on Friday was pretty heavy but everyone seemed to be riding well. There was a BMW rally in the area, and the SV650 and Superhawk guys were on the Gap for a little get together. My neighbor at the gap was one of the Superhawk riders and his name was Verne. He was a pretty cool guy but I never got any pictures of him or his bike, so maybe he will send me one that I can post on the site. I’ll tell you this much, if you run into him don’t make any Ernest jokes because he will probably kick your ass. Don’t ask me how I know this.
I was going to meet up with some folks from the ETR group on Saturday for a ride and I was expecting a voice mail on my phone with the details of the meeting place and time. Since there is no cell phone service anywhere near the Gap for me I rode into Robbinsville to check my voicemail. On the way back I got caught in a ridiculous rain storm. I got so wet it was just stupid.
The rain ended fairly quick and the road dried out just as quick. I was able to make a few more passes before dark. After dark I sat outside the room and talked to Verne and some other guys but I was just way too tired so I hit the sack around 10:00.
Saturday morning I was up bright and early and on the road by 7:00AM. There was a heavy blanket of fog in some areas that just made the view from the overlook awesome. My turkeys were out standing in the road and the temperature was pleasant. I decided to stop in for some pancakes after I made several passes, but when I went into the store I could not believe how busy it was. I really do love pancakes, but I was not willing to give up that much riding time so I decided to skip breakfast and go back out riding. Things were pretty good up until around 11:00AM when things started getting a little crazy. I got myself a cheeseburger and they were still very busy so it took about half an hour to get the cheeseburger. I needed to meet up with some folks from ETR at 2:00 but I figured I could get two more passes in before I had to leave. Traffic was just so heavy and moving so slow that it was soon obvious that I would not have enough time to get in two passes so I stopped and talked to Zee for a little while. After a while I decided I better start heading for Knoxville and once I got two or three turns down the road a group of some kind of little import sports cars were coming through and probably the third or fourth guy in the line came around a right hander with his front wheels turned sharp to the right, but the car was sliding straight and heading right for me! It was too close for me, but once he slowed down enough the tires bit and the car turned hard to the right. The thing that might have upset me the most is that the guy did not look scared or apologetic, he was visibly angry that he had fallen behind the other guys. He did not even seem to notice me or be at all aware of the fact that he had nearly just killed me.
At 2:00 I arrived at Alcoa Good Times to meet up with with the ETR folks for the ride. We had 10 bikes show up for the ride and set out for the Foothills Parkway. It looked like things were getting a little wierd at the Gap because there were all kinds of police cars and ambulances sitting by the lake. This helped me confirm myself that leaving the Gap when I did was the right thing to do. We stopped at the Motorcycle Pit Stop at 72 and 129 and this was my first time inside this place. They were real friendly inside and it seemed like a really nice place. Tony told me that they also work on motorcycles in there and that they do really good work. We hung out there for a little while and I have to say I enjoyed the time off the bike hanging out almost as much as the time riding. From there we rode the Foothills Parkway to 321 and took it to a really interesting road called Waldens Creek Road. This was a little 10 mile ride that took us back to Rt. 321. Most of this route was single lane road through the forest and following a stream my GPS calls “unknown stream or river”. Any time I check my GPS to find out what road I am on or what the name of the river I am crossing is and it replies “unknown stream or river”, or “unknown unpaved road”, or something to that effect you can bet I am having a great ride. The group split up a little bit going through here and I was with Laura and More, but we thought there were two more behind us so Laura stopped and waited for them to catch up. More and I pulled out and continued on. More is a beginning rider but she sure did a good job on this little one lane road. I really don’t think her R6 was made with this type of riding in mind, but she had no problems! We took a little break at the end of the road to regroup, and then we headed out for the barbeque at Alcoa Good Times.
The barbeque was very excellent! They laid out a really nice spread for us and everyone really appreciated it. By this time I was getting pretty wore down and I was really struggling just to stay awake. I kind of felt like a party pooper, but I pulled out kind of early, but I wish I could have stayed longer and had the chance to meet a few more of the people from ETR.
I stayed at Motel 6 in north Knoxville. When I arrived at my room all I really wanted to do was get into the air conditioning and get a shower and go to sleep. The A/C was not running so my room was very warm. I fired it up and set out to get some ice so I could pound down some ice water but found that the ice machine was broken. I went to turn on the TV and found out I had no remote control. I, like most men, can not watch television if I do not have a remote control. I hoof it back up to the office and they give me a remote control. I settle back in and then it turns out the remote control does not work. Lucky for me I am an electronics expert because I was able to figure out that the batteries in it were dead. I really did not want to hoof it back to the office again so I went ahead and put my own batteries into the remote. I was so dried out from riding all day and I just could not stand drinking warm water, so I was forced to go out on the bike in search of ice. Finally I was ready to shower! I had ice water, air conditioning, and a remote control! So much for getting to bed early!
Usually the longer a ride goes on the harder time I have getting an early start, and Sunday was no exception to this rule. I sure did try to get an early start, but I did not get on the road until 8:00. The plan was to do as much two lane on the way home as possible to try to make the ride home a little more interesting. The thermometer said 72 when I pulled out of the parking lot but it felt much warmer than that.
I took 75 up to Jellico. There was a lot of fog out, most of it below 1,300 feet and it was really dense. It looked just like the valleys had been filled up with snow! Jellico was underneath this fog and when I got off the freeway visibility was very poor. From Jellico I took 25W to 90 and this was a spectacular ride! I had read in Mad Maps that the “Witches Knuckle” (Rt. 190) just off 90 was a Mad Map “must” so I decided to ride it. I’m not sure what made this road a “must”, because it was a nice road but I really did not see anything special about it. At Pineville I picked up 119. 119 was a very scenic road that was as smooth as a babies butt and easy to make good time on. I stopped at a BP station and ate Chili Dogs and Cheetos for breakfast. I took 119 into Harlan where I picked up 421. This was an incredible road. The mountains this road went over appear to be solid rock. Many times the road went though these amazing rock canyons cut out of the mountain to make the road. The views from 421 were unbeatable. This is my idea of a “must” road. I look forward to riding it again. Once I reached Rt. 80 I took it into Hazard, KY. This was another great road with some nice twists and turns. I continued on 80 until I reached 23 and took it to Louisa where I crossed over into West Virginia and headed north on 52.
After a short run on 64 I jumped on WV2 and headed for Hillbilly Hotdogs. I have been wanting to visit this place for a long time, and you can imagine my disappointment when I got there and found out that it was closed. Even so I was able to see what the place looked like and take a few pictures and hopefully I will make it that was again this year when they are open.
I continued on up Rt. 2 to Point Pleasant, WV. This is the town that is famous for the Mothman. This legend was made kind of famous in the 2002 move The Mothman Prophecies. I really wanted to get the kids a Mothman T-shirt, but like most of West Virginia at 6:00PM on a Sunday, all the stores were closed. I settled for a picture of my motorcycle next to the Mothman statue, and continued on my way north on Rt. 2.
In Middleport I crossed the river and headed north on Rt. 7. I really intended to take 7 all the way to 77 and finish my trip via the freeway, but when I came across the sign for 555 I just could not resist it. I knew it was going to put me home even later than I was already running, but I had such a great day of riding and I still was not ready for it to end. Once I reached 70 I knew it was time to quit fooling around so I jumped onto the freeway and hightailed it for home. I finally arrived in my garage at 11:00PM.
This ride ended up being one of the finest rides of my life. Sometimes it is really nice to get out by yourself and have the total freedom that you can only have by riding by yourself. It was so nice of the ETR folks to invite me on their ride and I enjoyed it a lot also. I plan on hooking up with them as often as I can, and as often as they are willing to let me tag along!