usually that is a true statement!
Lori and team once again served up a full complement of food for all of us to feast upon including (but not limited to) biscuits, gravy, bacon, sausage, hash brown casserole, scrambled eggs, and, of course, Ms. Wyn's Goetta .... OH MY! I went about hardening arteries and after breakfast Kent came up to me inquiring what my plans for the day were.
Well, RIDE, of course! With the "glib reply" out of the way, I informed him that I wasn't sure if I were going to head towards Georgia or hit some stuff in central Tennessee that I haven't been on for a while.
Well, Kent mentioned he wanted to find something he hasn't ever been on before. Dude! I can fix you up! So the decision was made ... central Tennessee it is!
I pull out the map and set us up a sweet route with some tasty twisties. Two problems ... one, it will be a LONG day and two, because of the first problem, we will have to slab an hour and a half to get there so we can be back in time for dinner. By now, Curtis Cavanaugh, and Bob Nelson have expressed interest in tagging along. Cool! I like all 3 of them! ; )
Here is a map of the route we took:
If you use this link ... zoom in! there's some *good* stuff here!! Actually I have run this very same route (with exception of the departure point) and it's always enjoyed.
So we got rolling right around 11. Lori typically serves dinner around 7 PM-ish. 8 hours? that's plenty of time right? (now, for context I did NOT take the time to try and assess how many miles we were looking at or our return time, we were burning daylight as it was!) Okay, by now I have tipped you off enough, you likely know the answer to that. ; )
As mentioned above, the first part was slab. Nothing to report there.
Upon exiting slab, we are in urbana and dealing with light after light. I finally look over after the third or fourth light (we been riding *almost* two hours now!!) and say, the fun stuff is about 10, 15 miles away. I don't know if I did that more for them or more for me!
(Not?) Soon enough we are on TN-61. Immediately a grin is pasted on my face. I *know* what's up ahead!
Suffice to say, ZOOM! ZOOM! swish, sway, repeat! all the while you are giddily laughing in your helmet! YES baby, I'll take some more of this please!
Then it's US 441 across Norris Dam. A really beautiful area as you ride right next to the river that feeds the dam most of the way in. Then you climb, cross, the dam and there's another short stretch of fun.
Well, I had held off passing this pickup truck, giving the driver a chance to pull over before basic traffic tenets had to be compromised. I had been following long enough for him to get (the hell) out of the way, but he expressed no interest in doing so. Good stuff coming up, it's GO time! ... and I did.
I got around, Curtis did (as he was on my six ALL day) as did Kent. Past that I could not see. I later found out the guy must've gotten pissed because when Bob made his attempt to pass the driver put the truck in the middle of the road making it a balls on or just cool tires issue. What a prick!
Bob chose the latter (and I would've too ... when a driver acts like that, he may take you out! SCREW THAT! -- live to ride another day! good call Bob! but sorry buddy).
Uh-oh! Within a mile of that pass, four deer cross the road. I damn near stopped looking for #5 but it never showed. Roll on!
With Curtis' 120 mile range (on his big Magna), we needed to fuel up again. This would be the perfect opportunity to put the idea that gravels are a problem on the next road we are going to hit. The next road? TN-116 ... Rich Dluhy's favorite! HAHAHA
I LOVE this road. Uber fun! y'know when you see the typical warning sign with the S (curvy road ahead) "for the next" XX "miles" I automatically grin. I just can't help myself. The XX in this case was 25.
As it turns out, 3 of the 4 of us damn near tried to kill ourselves in different spots. Kent started this ride with "You've crashed (pointing to me), You've crashed (pointing to Curtis), YOU haven't (to Bob), whose turn is it?"
Well on this road 3 of us took a shot at being that candidate. Kent must be the only paragon of virtue and self-restraint and representing Mo well!
Curtis tried riding into a rock wall, Bob, was within INCHES of the white line in a left turn, with nothing but air past that line, and I was in a nice stretch of switchbacks kickin' ass and takin' names, when the bike DANCED laterally across a gravel patch that I managed to point the bike at. I'm not happy with that!
I had enough time to formulate two statements in my head. One was "FUCK!" the other was "Oh boy! this is gonna hurt!!" as I was moving about 40 MPH when the momentary slide started. Obviously, I kept it on two wheels, but I sure chilled the next few turns while trying to regain composure.
The irony of the potential of this situation was that I warned THEM about gravels and *my* dumb ass is about to go over the cliff. DOH!
Well all 3 of us escaped ... bum, bum, bum, bum .... certain death .... and lived to ride another day! YAY!
116 is an absolute hoot! There are some challenging road conditions to handle, but ... just! .... fun!
This dumps you on TN-62 and then US 27. These two are kind of ho-hum connector type roads for this route. It's still good, but not "Oh wow!" stuff!
27 brings us to TN-297 through the Big South Fork area just south of KY-TN state line. This is another mountain-crossing thrill ride. Up one mountain, then down, the right back up another and ride the ridge a bit. I'll take it!
This dead ends on TN-154 which has a lot of roller-coaster type hills to play on. If you work your throttle right you get that "whoop" feeling in your belly when you crest a hill on a rolly-coaster. I kinda like that!
154 drops you on to TN-52, another "dead end". We needed to refuel here too. According to Kent's GPS, there were a couple within a few miles away. Apparently we entered the "Land of the Lost" as the first place we found wouldn't accept credit nor debit cards but WOULD a personal check. REALLY?!?
Curtis had the cash and filled up. The rest of us were looking for someplace that works with plastic. The friendly attendant points us down the road a few miles to their Co-Op. Okay. It's closed, but they do have *a* credit card machine -- as in ONE!
Never seen anything like it! There was a "kiosk" that accpeted CC info and then you plug in what pump you are at, but it was a get-in-line and wait-your-turn situation. Us 3 (unfilled) bikes were among 2 other vehicles that showed. I cannot swear to it, but I think between the other store and this one, we lost damn near an hour --- REFUELING!!!
We get back to TN-52 and descend the mountain on some nice lazy type, but fun, S curves that sashay back and forth quite nicely. Not technical, but still fun.
It was funny because just prior to this Curtis asked where we were relative to Knoxville. From his expression, he wasn't entirely pleased about our position relative to the time on the watch. Understandably!
It was now that I realized getting back to camp prior to dinner? Not so much. Bob's GPS had more confidence than I, but was still tight even at that!
It was then I asked what their idea was to missing dinner and still hitting the fun stuff. Nobody was complaining about the roads and even though time was tight we figured we wouldn't arrive too late that Tellico would have rolled up the sidewalks so we could still find food SOMEwhere.
BOOM! back on track. We got back to 52 and headed west (yes further from Tellico) to catch one more of Ed's fun roads!
This would be TN-85. We get to it and, thankfully, the cop we had been SLO-O-O-O-O-WLY following (DAMMITALL!) for the last 20 miles stayed on 52 instead of turning onto 85! YAY!
On to 85 and up, down, left, right, rinse, repeat. Oh and a couple grins here and there for good measure.
This is as far as I "planned". I knew this would get us back to interstate to slab it if we were close to dark-thirty (read as deer-thirty). Well it kind of was!
We decided to set the course for the slab (US 127 south to I-40 east) ... until ... I get the idea that maybe we can "play" on one more road before having to yawn on the slab. I KNOW that all 3 of these clowns hate slabbing (almost, if not) as much as I.
I quickly did some math in my head and since leading, I aborted the "let's get to slab now" idea and opted for TN-62 east to US 27 --- this would mean less slab and the avg. speed on the slab may be 80 mph and the secondary road speed would likely be close to 65 mph avg. and more fun! No brainer right? Well I never heard anyone complain. The math related to about 10 minutes time and that wouldn't have got us there *in* time any-fewkin'-how! may as well enjoy it, and I know I did! 62 isn't too tough to take. ; )
Well at this point there is no disillusion in any of our heads. Boys! we will NOT make it back in time for dinner! Kent, being Mr. Technolgy (bluetoothed, MP3'ed, and Lord knows what else), had called Steeeeevve and asked him to set back 4 plates for us.
We, at this point, beat feet! Onto the interstate, since it's already dark! Kent had the tech. stuff (as in radar detector), so he led. We were told "You see me drop anchor, follow suit!"
No imperial entanglements were encountered and we got to Tellico as quickly as we could. We got off the slab and are on 68 headed south. About this point, Kent, sitll in the lead, flashes on his bright light upon clearing traffic, which makes night daylight! What a luminous display of electrons!
Nearly simultaneously with the flip of the high beam switch was his twist on the happy handle. After the second or third round I figured out the routine. Not just twist when you see light, but twist up to 90 mph (indicated on my speedo). BooYah!
We made pretty good time and made all those pour souls worrying about our dumbasses at ease upon our arrival. Before dropping my kickstand I let out a very enthusiastic "WHOOOOO!!!" What a day of fun twisties and GREAT company!!! I live for stuff like this! We did about 400 miles and it was ALL fun!
Catchphrase of the event? Jack Smith came up to me shortly after the "WHOOOOO!!" and asked how many Rock-e-Philometers I did. LOVE IT!
First time I met Phil, Melissa told a story about my routing procedures. Phil is grinning the whole time and says "A kindred spirit!" I've liked that man ever since! ; )
Ahhh! beer-thirty! AND food! because the Hunt entourage left food out (and covered) for the "latecomers". Yup, I reckon you can call me "late for dinner" now, dammit! Thanks Lori and crew for leaving some food for us.
The night passed quickly especially because of the good company and some good brew was flowing. The lies flowed as quickly the liquid did. Good times! This group is nothing short of AWESOME!!
4 comments:
sounds like it was a fantastic ride! i am glad you had such a great day! it has been so long since i have been on a ride that long.
yep
nice lookin route Ed...I love TN 27...from Wartburg to Robbins is just curve after curve...its the way Cindy and I come through Tenn on our way to Hunts every year.
-shaun
shaun i have done it many times. although leaving my house i get to hit a few more fun ones to get there. yeah 27 is okay -- nice, non-technical weaving along the countryside, but for this route it's mostly a connector as we rode more tight stuff most of the day. ;j
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