September 7

Street art by Bryce.

Inside, we were waiting for our food when a couple walked up in Vanson leathers, obviously the BMW couple.  They asked if we knew the local roads, I responded that I had been here a few times, and we started talking roads.  Eric asked them:

"Where are you guys from?"

Them: "Panama City, Florida",

Me: "Really?  So am I!  What part of town do you live in?"

Them: "Lynn Haven".

Me: "Really?  So do I!  What neighborhood"?

It turns out that Bill and Cathy lived just a few streets away from me!  He said he thought he recognized my bike.  We exchanged email addresses and I promised to get up with them when I got home.  What a small world.

We rode the Cherohala.  This is such a wonderful road.  It swoops and dives and turns over miles of mountains, sometimes embedded deep into the forest, then breaking out on the top of ridgelines with stupendous views.  On a pretty weekend, this road is loaded with bikes.  On this beautiful Thursday, we had it almost all to ourselves.

We gassed up in Robbinsville, then headed north up 129 to another motorcycling Mecca...Deal's Gap.  129 is a nice road, climbing slightly, with big broad sweepers along the Cheoah River, until it crosses a bridge near the Tapoco lodge (which serves great fried catfish), at which point in becomes an entirely different road.  It steepens, tightens, and narrows all at once.  At least the road surface had improved since my last visit; the old chopped up asphalt had been replaced with new, silky smooth blacktop. 

At one point, a guardrail had a huge bulge in it, like a snake that had just finished a big meal.  Something coming downhill had blown a curve and been saved from a dive off a cliff by that guardrail.

At the intersection of 129 and 28, there is a store, lodge, gas station, and hangout that is dedicated to motorcyclists.  We met Panama City Bill and Cathy there once again, and had a good time looking at all the bikes.  There were supermotos in abundance, proving the popularity of this "new" design. 

From the store, north, is a road that is often called The Dragon.  318 curves in 11 miles.  What makes it special is that it borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the east side, and a cliff dropping down to Chilhowee Lake on the west side.  There are no billboards, no mailboxes, no driveways, no crossroads.  The majority of the road lies in the state of Tennessee, renowned for it's smooth, fluid blacktop.  An excellent road, a challenging road, a road sadly compromised by it's commercial success.  On a sunny weekend, Deal's Gap is crowded with vehicles...sport-bikers trying to best each others time's, cruisers putting along placidly, locals in cars and trucks trying to get here and there.  What once was just a curvy mountain road has become a public racetrack.

We took a break at the store and chatted with other riders.  We were about ready to head out when a string of maybe 20 straight-piped, leather-clad cruiser riders fired up and headed up the hill.  We knew that they would be riding at a pace much slower than we wanted to ride, and there was no way we would be able to pass a group that size, so we waited for about 10 minutes to build in a good gap between us and them. 

Then we took off.

Don't let anybody kid you, this is an excellent road.  If you can get there when the crowds are down and the speed cops are elsewhere, this ride is not to be missed.  Eric led, and there were sparks a-plenty from the underside of his trusty Shadow

We were almost to the end of the tight, twisty section when we came up on the cruisers.  As we expected, they were doing what cruisers do...making lots of noise, but little headway.  We cooled our jets and settled in behind them.  My ride plan had us descending to the end of the Gap and turning right, north, onto another wonderful little road, the Foothills Parkway.  Maybe, just maybe, this string of riders plodding along in front of us didn't know about Foothills, or had some other place to be.  You can always hope...

Alas, they turned right.

So we pulled over.  Instead of sitting behind them, at a frustratingly slow pace, being deafened by their look-at-me loud pipes, why not take a break, let them take a lead, and then ride at own pace in peace and quiet?  Such a plan.  We stopped here.

And found this.

There's rattlesnakes in them thar hills.

We waited about 10 minutes, then fired up and hit the road.  Much to our surprise, we found the whole cruiser group pulled over for a smoke break about a mile up the road!

We didn't come up behind a single other vehicle on the Foothills Parkway, we had it all to ourselves.

When we came to the intersection of the Foothills Parkway and 321, we saw this:

They seem to be taking their sweet time repairing the road (July 05???), so we headed down 321 and took River Road through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, a great road, but with more traffic than we would have liked.

We rode about 300 miles today.

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