Senseless sensor

Many years ago, I used to ride a lot with the local chapter of the Southern Cruisers Riding Club. I have remained a member even though I no longer do much group riding. My style of riding has become much more aggressive to deal with the parade style riding that the SCRC maintains.

The group has changed a lot over the years as people come and go. I don't hardly know many of them anymore. However, I got an email detailing a Sunday ride to Tellico. I have friends there and figured I could ride with the group then split off and come up with a plan of my own from there.

I put out an email to the SOAR list to see if anyone wanted to meet up in Tellico. Kent replied that he could sneak off and join me. Sweet!

Saturday night before lying down for bed I reopened the email to remind myself of when and where we were meeting, only to find that I didn't pay attention to the date. Their ride is NEXT Sunday. Crap! Well it is nearly midnight now, and Kent and I were chatting earlier, but he had signed off for the night. Wonderful!

Still, I sent him a message in hopes he would get it prior to leaving. Tellico is a looong way for him and we could meet somewhere closer to his house and then formulate a plan from there. Either he wasn't asleep yet, or I woke him when I sent him a message letting him know how much an idiot I am.

He pinged me back with "I will call you in the AM". Works for me.

So morning rolls around and between Melissa's whimpy cell phone ringtone and a bit of sleep deprivation, neither of us even heard it. Kent had called around 6:30 as he said he would. It was now 8-something. Crap, Crap, Crap! Why do people tolerate me?

Knowing he is a gadget freak and has bluetooth and all going through his helmet speakers, I tried calling him back. No answer, so I left a message saying that if I didn't hear back from him by 9, I would see him in Tellico. He got in touch with me and we set up to meet at Hot Springs, NC. That's only 40 minutes from the house and where he was at was roughly 40 minutes from there too, so that worked out well -- on paper anyway.

I geared up and headed out. About 20 minutes into the ride, I come across a detour sign stating that the most direct, and quickest, way to Hot Springs is closed. The detour while not the quickest, was certainly the more fun way to go and with spare time I likely would have chose to go that way anyhow, but I am trying to be on time. Not gonna happen as the detour routes you about 15 miles further east only to turn back five miles west.

I had been behaving since I had time to get there without breaking (m)any laws. I had kept a nice 55 mph average, but with this detour I am now behind so I wicked it up a bit. Of course that little bit of miles wasn't enough to really make up any time despite a 20 mph average difference.

I show up and apologize to Kent and he assured me it was a non-issue. I imagine he expected me to not be on time. We came up with a tentative destination as he wanted to check in Damascus, VA (a bicycle haven) for some parts sources for his near-antique vintage bicycle he has had since he was a kid that he is wishing to restore. The route would take us through some sweet motorcycling roads, but then, here in motorcycle heaven we could really find them regardless of the direction chosen.

Anyway, we set out to hit NC-212/TN-352. This is a great little run along the river in a low-lying shaded area with some really sweet curves, then it climbs a mountain with plenty of turns but they are usually littered with gravel. Then on the TN side, the gravels disappear to reveal a nicely manicured fun mix of lefts and rights all stacked together. Fun stuff! We get to a stop sign and, with a wry smile Kent says, "That didn't suck!"  Yep, hard to take! (grin)

When we were doing the routing, Kent noticed that US 321 up near Watauga Lake looked fun and I told him it was a nice run with good views of the lake and some fun, but not technical twisties. So, since it was along the way, we decided to include that. The roads between TN-352 and US 321 were basically connectors and nothing to write home about.

321 was nice and most of the traffic we encountered was easily dispatched. We stopped in Mountain City to top off his camelback and to grab an affordable "healthy" lunch at Subway. At that point, he suggested I take the lead for a bit.

Really?!? You want me to go first on the Snake? Damn! such a hard life!  ; )

We headed up towards Shady Valley and just before hitting the Snake (a -really- fun 15? mile stretch or so of some tight twisties) some guy on a bike coming the other way held his left hand up and did a counterclockwise circular rotation. I took this to be "rollers" as in cops, either with radar or working an accident.

With this "knowledge" I kept a really sedate pace through there, but never ONCE saw a cop. Grr! What really sucked is we had a completely free run of this road -- on a Sunday -- in July! After a few miles, I decided that I misinterpreted his signal and wicked it back up a bit. Man! I DO love this road.

We passed the store and went on a little further as it is twisty on both sides of the store. Shortly thereafter, we turned back around but before taking off to re-run it, Kent mounted up his GoPro camera to take some video.

Off again, and back to the fun! This run wasn't as uninhibited though as we encountered some traffic, but it was dispatched as the opportunities became available.

From the Snake we headed on into Damascus to a bike shop only to find out that the guy there basically said "Good luck!" as he knew of nothing to recommend. Kent quipped "I came all the way up here from Simpsonville, SC to get that answer?"  Heh!

 This was as far as we planned out a route. So Kent grabbed a quarter and flipped it and let that determine our route. We either were going to head back and run the Snake again (YAY!) or we could head east out of Damascus along US 58 which is fun, too. Again motorcycle heaven allows many choices!  ; )

So 58 it is! We were rolling along and having a great time. I had my one and only pucker moment on one of those curves though.

Going into a right hand turn (with a clear sight line all the way through) I think I was looking too far ahead in the turn and not paying enough attention to where I was. It was a slightly off-camber curve and upon realizing this, laid the anchor down a bit as I didn't feel comfortable entering at my current speed.

I felt the bike wiggle a bit and I wasn't comfortable leaning over at that point. So I went into it rather straight until I scrubbed off enough speed to take the turn with comfort. I didn't cross the yellow, but came damn close. No harm, no foul, but I sure backed off a bit until I regained some composure.

Then it was another connector, some unnumbered road that had 3 different names and wasn't on my map, but WAS on Kent's GPS. We were headed to VA-194. This looked good on the GPS but was a letdown of sorts.

This took us to NC-88. I've been on 88 before and it's a nice, sedate run with plenty of non-technical curves. The main thing is, is that it is largely untraveled. It is quite serene.

My fuel gauge has been screaming for a while now but there just has been NO gas stations. We get to the stop sign at 321 and I tell him I need fuel. "Didn't you fuel when I did?" .... "Yeah, but I have no reserve and am not interested in finding out how badly I need it" ....  he nodded and plugs the nearest gas station in and off we go. Of course, it's closed ... so long that the pumps have been removed and grass growing through the asphalt. Grr!


I make it to the station and it only takes 3.7 gallons. WTF? The sensor starts warning you waaaayyy too early!


We still hadn't formulated a route, so now was a good point to figure out where we were headed next. He suggests a road I had never been on going over Sugar Mtn. in NC toward Linville, so we can hook onto the Blue Ridge Parkway. Well twist my arm!

The only caveat being that the last time he was on it, it was under construction. He said it may still be under construction and that there are two ways to find out, we can either look it up or just go find out. Well, part of motorcycling is the adventure of exploring, so we decide on the latter. Yep, still under construction.

By now that torture rack of a seat is really wearing on my ass! I am hurting -- no amount of wiggling around searching for another position offered any relief. Tough it out I kept telling myself.

Soon enough we are on the BRP. Love this road! The vistas of the mountains, the nice curvy road, the lack of stop-n-go, all of it. Only thing is, that the lack of stop-n-go does not offer you a chance to get off your ass much.

He was fighting the same problem so we made a point to stop a few times. One of them, Kent said "We aren't getting anywhere looking at the bikes" but it was another 5 minutes before we left as neither of us were anxious to sit back down.

There was very little traffic on the BRP so we were allowed to set a comfortable pace. About 60-70 mph is the perfect speed for that road on a motorcycle. Now, I'm not saying we were running that, just that that is the perfect speed for that road, IMO.

We discussed possibly stopping in Asheville and heading separate ways from there. I asked what our ETA was for that thinking if we still had enough light I might run the BRP the rest of the way seeing as I have never run the section from Asheville to Cherokee. It is the section of the BRP closest to me, and I have run every mile of the road except that part.

Despite sore asses, we bypassed Asheville and continued on. I don't know if my musing affected that or not. I certainly enjoy his company but this is putting him further from home. He asked if I wanted to go to the highest point. Sure, I don't care, we're on bikes, it ain't rainin' ... I'm good! let's roll!

We wound our way there racing the setting sun ....

We finally make it and Kent asked me to get in front of the sign so he could waste digital media with a pic or two ....

 (at least the phoslite works)







or three ...

I informed him that once again, my gas gauge was screaming and was as far as I have ever pushed this tank. I am a bit worried at this point. It's nearly dark and I definitely don't want to run out of gas.

We got off the BRP in Waynesville (at the 23/74 exit) and headed towards a gas station. By the time we hit one I am showing almost 200 miles on the tank. I insert the card in the reader to find it declined. WTF?!? there's money in the bank, what's going on? Tried again .... nada!

Kent hands me a 20 and says "Catch me later on that" Maggots rock! I don't know what I would've done had he not as I had $3 cash in my pocket. I might have made it home on that but wasn't sure. The tank would only take 3.9 gallons. That means I *still* had a gallon left and the gauge had been flashing for at least 30 miles (so that is at least 1 1/2 gallons + that it starts saying "get gas" -- yeesh!)

We parted ways there as I headed north on 276 to I-40 and he kept on going west on 23/74. I got home with 532 miles on the odometer for the day and 14 hours after leaving. I know Kent had over 600 and was gone for a few hours more.

It was a great day and I always enjoy Kent's company. Thanks buddy for joining me (and bailing me out). Good times, good times!