Not a Resource

On the outskirts of Greenville, SC on Saturday I stopped for gas and noticed a large section of cord showing on my rear tire. The only motorcycle shop in Greenville that opened on the weekends had just closed for the day so I had to haul ass to Aiken to reach a Yamaha dealer that would be open for a couple more hours. I made it with about half an hour to spare and they got the new tire mounted in twenty. Of course, they charged me the full “book” labor rate of 1.2 hours. Mechanic work is such a damned scam…

Made it out to Hardeeville, SC that night, a nothing exit on I-95 just a little ways north of Savannah.

Sunday I set out for Ocala National Forest and Orlando. Started off with the intention of taking US-17 the entire way to SR-19 but I got a late start and was going so fast that I decided to do I-95 / I-295 for a while to lessen the risk of arrest. The north / south run thru Ocala doesn’t offer much of anything to someone that doesn’t want to leave pavement. One of the springs was accessible so I went there, and it was pretty, but lacking swim trunks there wasn’t much to do but get back on my way.

I’m staying at the Embassy Suites near Disney for a couple nights, it’s reasonably priced and as always the rooms are fantastic. Tonight I stayed in and ordered a Chicago-style deep dish pizza from Giordano’s that I’m not sure I will be able to finish before I check out. The thing is a monster. A delicious monster. The first pizza I ever encountered that I couldn’t even eat half of…

Tomorrow morning I’ll head out to visit the rat. I’m giving serious thought to an annual pass, I haven’t really done the Disney thing since I was a kid and I think it would be fun to spend a year visiting as often as I can…

Thursday I did go with EOM-7, which was too much Blue Ridge Parkway and a detour for some goat trails at Linville Falls. At the Little Switzerland tunnel I pulled off into the grass to grab a photo and as soon as my front tire touched the pavement again the rear spun around and I tipped over to the left. No damage to the bike but my right leg got scraped up real good by the foot peg or brake pedal.

When I finally said enough of the BRP and told the GPS to take me home, it apparently decided that it should try to get me killed. It sent me south on NC-80, a road with nothing but switchbacks… and then took me north on NC-226, another crazy road with BRP access! Around that time I’d lost daylight and it started raining, and this was the same road that I’d been stuck with Monday night in the rain. I wasn’t too happy but the Shiner Bock waiting in my hotel room fridge made it a little better.

Friday morning I decided that I’d had enough with crooked roads and planned a meandering course towards home. Met some guys from my area at a rest stop on the highway and we road together through Gatlinburg and Cherokee, then I headed off on my own to Highlands and stopped for the night in Seneca, SC as I didn’t think there was enough daylight left to make the Greenville area. Somewhere in the Nantahala National Forest I got a cool picture of my bike under a waterfall.

Today I’ll wander from Greenville towards Savannah on the backroads and cross another section of Sumter National Forest, then roll down US-17 towards Jacksonville…

Monday I road the EOM-6 route. Was out for 10 hours and got rained on for probably 9 of them, and to top things off I picked up a nail in my front tire. It was a good thing I picked up that tire repair kit because I was out in the middle of frickin’ nowhere on a tiny road that was posted “Dead End” but really wasn’t. Unfortunately the air compressor blew the accessory fuse on my bike and that made the whole thing even more sucky because getting at the fuses with the dash shelf installed is something of an ordeal.

After that I stopped for dinner in the next town, aborted the route and headed back to the hotel. Of course, I was still in the mountains, it was dark, and I had a whole bunch of twisty roads to cover before getting back to highway. A couple of times I wished I was carrying dry socks and a sleeping bag ’cause I would have been happy to just call it quits for the night on the side of the road.

Tuesday I road the EOM-1 route. It was a beautiful day until I saw the “Pavement Ends” sign. We’d been warned about that over the weekend but I’d forgotten. I trudged through the goat trails, praying not to drop my bike because the dirt was still wet and I was wearing sneakers so I’d probably never get it back up on my own, and terrified of going over the edge and my corpse never being found. After two miles I was on pavement again, and then back in the mud for another mile-and-a-half or so.

When that was all over I was in a magnificent place and I started enjoying the ride again, and stopped to take lots of pictures. Originally I’d planned to abort the ride around Elk Park because I started late and didn’t want to be on twisty mountain roads after dark, but I was making great time and thought I might actually finish. Until I got to the north side of Beech Mountain and the route had me turning on to another goat trail. I said enough and told the GPS to take me to Starbucks.

Yesterday I planned my own ride. Slabbed it out to Knoxville, hit US-129 south, slayed The Dragon and road the Cherohala Skyway. The Tail of the Dragon was something of a disappointment, the stretch from the overlook to the camp site is non-stop turns but it’s over pretty quick and I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. Two of my rides have gone through Shady Valley, aka The Snake, and I think that area is much more enjoyable with far less traffic.

Cherohala, however, lived up to my expectations. Scenic and beautiful, very little traffic, well-maintained road surfaces, plenty of fun twisties. Very low cloud ceiling on the stretch at 5,000+ feet, could just about touch the sky. Got a little wet at the start of the descent but aside from that it was the perfect ride.

Haven’t made up my mind yet for today. Was originally leaning towards just going to Shady Valley and running the mountains there all day, but after studying the remaining route that I haven’t run yet I see EOM-7 taking a different path into the valley and has some stretches on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The weather today looks good and every other time I’ve been on the BRP during this trip it was been fogged in and rainy, so that is very tempting…

Decided that both the bike and I deserve to rest for the day. We’ve done around 1,500 miles since pulling out of the driveway back home. It’s been a blast, but this is supposed to be a vacation and we don’t need to be home for two whole weeks. A day of doing nothing much feels like the right thing right about now.

Hit Shoney’s for a gluttonous buffet breakfast and then stopped by Walmart to see if I could find some of the elusive boxes of Winchester White Box .45 ACP. Sadly, they were out that, but they did have a little bit of many popular calibers and a single box of the Winchester .45 hollow points that I keep in my guns. They also had a bunch of long guns for sale. When they stopped selling them in my area several years ago I’d assumed that was a nationwide thing…

Monday morning I’ll hit the local dealership to fix my brakes and hopefully at least get my windshield raised. Then I think I’ll stay a few more days to run the rest of the EOM routes. Except maybe for #8, we were warned that mining loader trucks have been using the whole road in the Devil’s Triangle area and we should stay away.

Started the day with my windshield stuck in the down position. All the fuses seem to be good so either a connector has come loose, the switch is bad, or it is completely fucked.

Decided to run EOM Route #2. Somehow I end up leading 20+ riders from the hotel. Not a position I wanted to be in. On the way to our first mountain a group of four other FJRs passed me and at first I was happy to be following instead of leading.

Until we hit the twisties. I know well enough to “ride my own ride” — not to try to keep with someone riding above my comfort level — but with another bike in front of me it is hard ignore them an concentrate further along the curves. Out in front this comes naturally to me but following someone I have to really concentrate on ignoring the other rider and my ride suffers.

Luckily those people weren’t actually on our ride. At the first stop sign after the first mountain they went left, while I went straight with our original group of five. I didn’t know it at the time but the rest of the pack followed the group that went left and we didn’t see them again until we returned to the hotel.

Two of our group were riding two-up, and one of them was out-riding us all with his wife on the back. It was something to see.

Halfway through our ride, coming back down another mountain, I went to tap the rear brake pedal and it just sank. A few pumps got it grabbing again but was still weak. I try not to use much brakes in the curves but for the rest of the ride I did my best to avoid using them at all. This was especially challenging when we hit a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway with fog as thick as I’d ever seen.

Back at the hotel, it has been suggested that I try bleeding the brakes. I know that it’s not a terribly complicated procedure but it’s not something I’ve done myself before. The nearest dealer isn’t terribly close and is closed on Sunday anyways, so first thing in the morning I’ll be hitting whichever auto parts store I can find for a bleeding kit… but I’m not very confident that Sunday is going to be a riding day.

I did decide to bail on Atlanta on Thursday afternoon. Got rained on all the way to South Carolina and then finally it stopped and I was dry the rest of the way to Johnson City, TN.

Friday morning I checked the weather, decided that EOM Route #5 looked most likely to keep me dry, and I hit the parking lot ready to go out solo. Just as I was about to leave someone asked which ride I was taking and decided to join me.

The ride went up and down maybe 5 or 6 mountains in the Jefferson National Forest area. The picture is from the only one that had paved pull-offs and passing zones. The rest were fairly narrow roads with limited traffic. I kept it safe, rode at my comfort level, and had a blast. Hairpins, corkscrews, and decreasing radius turns all over the place. Back home we’ve got no roads that can provide that kind of experience.

Coming down one mountain we did encounter a real douchebag in a car. On every single turn he/she crossed entirely into the oncoming lane, and not a one of those turns had enough visibility to be sure that no traffic was coming. Luckily that person made it down without encountering anyone coming up. Hopefully that is the last jackass like that we come across this weekend…

Drove from my home to Atlanta on Wednesday, around 680 miles. My previous highest-milage day was mybe 450. About 45 minutes from my destination I got soaked. And realized that I forgot to bring the rain liner for my jacket. Ugggh.

Debating if I should get the hell out of Atlanta before the evening rush or wait for morning. Either way it looks to be a very wet trip.