Fall Into the GAP - <We Are Home... Bike Is Not In One Piece, Minor Damage>

[Razors]

... thanks for all the posts.... here is the trip report from  Day 1. It is now the end of day 2 and will be posting up late. Sorry to Nate and the Mrs for not hooking up at the Resort.....


Bandit Brother Matt at our first gas stop. Notice the gas price getting cheaper as we leave Chicago? (click on image)

Day  One is in the books. I am currently typing this from the Econolodge in Richmond, Kentucky.  We put in 474 miles and are right on schedule.   Matt and I left home at 6 without issue heading out under blue skies with a slight chill.  With the sun raising it quickly warmed up.  

 

Staying with the chronological order, this would be the drama part of the report.  We were just south of O’Hare on 294.  We were in the left lane with Matt on lead.  I see something up head which at first I thought was garbage moving across the highway. As we are quickly approaching the garage, I notice it’s a beaver trying to make it across the highway.

 

I get off the gas and give Matt some room. Matt saw it as well but he was right next to a minivan. I am thinking the furry creature is going to get hit and spin in front of Matt. Well, he got hit but was barley nicked. The beaver did spin around and ended up in Matt’s path but   Matt quickly dodged him with the beaver still moving in the original direction. Talk about your determination.

 

At this point, I can’t switch lanes because there is another vehicle there. I think I might have got fixated on the animal and not looking to move to the right of my own lane.  As I am quickly downshifted and on both brakes heavy, I just clear the little guy. As I give a sign of relief, I hear someone jamming on the breaks behind me.  As I look behind me and I see the front quarter panel of an SUV in my mirror.  I am assuming the driver was not paying attention and did not see me break at all.  I thought for sure I was going to literally get ran over. He was that close.   I remember three things running through my head.

 

1-      -FUCK!

 

2-      -My father in law saying, “that will make your butt pucker”.

 

3-      -Ewan McGregor , on Long Way Around, where he got hit on his motorcycle almost in the same fashion, rear ended.

 

 

Of course I am OK. No blood, no foul.  And now, back to the report. Oh, the SUV did recover and no one was hurt except maybe the beaver.

 

 

Triple X !  I give it two forks up!

As usual, we try to avoid the chain of restaurants and go to the ma and pop type places.  I added some restaurants from the Food Network Channel. These were from “Feasting On Asphalt” and “Diner, Drive-Ins and Dives”e.  Our first and only destination was the Triple X Family restaurant in Lafayette, Indiana, home of the Purdue Boilermakers.  

 

It was little after 10am but we still had a burger each. The burgers were grounded up out of steak.  Besides the lettuce, tomato and onion, I add mayo on it as well. It was really good.  Triple X is the name of the root beer. I have to say that it is one my favorite root beers for creamy and delicious.  The Triple X is the first drive inn in Indiana. When in the area, stop in and look for menu that we signed for the owners. If you mention that you saw them on the Food Network, you get name on the wall.

 

Located behind the Triple X

Here I am standing front the Purdue Football stadium wearing my Wisconsin hat.  That just happened.

Five minutes later, we stopped at Purdue University to check out the football stadium.  I put on my Wisconsin hat for my sister and her husband Shane.  I didn’t want them to think that I was changing teams.  Overall, Purdue has a very lovely scenic campus with historic buildings and mature trees.  

 

From that point, we hit the road to make some more miles up.  We made good time and caught about 10 minutes of rain near our destination.   All in all, it was a good day on the bike.  I can’t wait till tomorrow. Deals Gap or bust!

We timed this rain pretty well. We just did a 100 mile section and Matt wanted to top off and stretch the legs. Then the skies opened for about 5 minutes.  It's part of the game.

[Razors]

Just crossed the Tennessee State Line  from Kentucky

Day 2...complete . We slayed the Dragon!

 

 

We woke up to another great morning under blue skies and warm weather.  The day started off a little later then we wanted due to me sleeping in.  It was 9:00 before I heard Matt say “Good Morning Sunshine” jokingly.   I guess I took advantage of no kids to wake up to. I am sure the mileage from Day One had something to do with it as well.  After some chain maintenance we were off like a dress at Prom.

 

 

Looking back at the trip so far, I would not have changed a thing.  I get a lot criticism from the seasoned riders on taking so much slab. (slab = interstate riding).  Highway 75 south of Lexington into Knoxville was amazing.  The scenery was incredibly beautiful with large mountains covered in green think tree tops.  It was fun to race up the highway overlooking the rivers below. We made some great time. The roads are so smooth and clean here.  I give a big round of applause to the highway  departments for Tennessee and Kentucky.

 

Hardly a Palace but good food.

We stopped for lunch in Knoxville at the Pizza Palace. Another restaurant featured on the food network.  It was a drive inn but had some bar style seating at the front of the place.  Matt and I split a pizza burger and a small pizza.  I was not going to have a pizza but once the waitress knew we were from Chicago she insisted we try the pizza.

 

“We have been told that we could open shop in Chicago and do real well there” she said.

 

I am thinking slow down lady. You see my girth? I will be the judge of that.

 

Well, they are on to something. They ground up their own sausage. It was tasty but a bit salty. I even asked Matt  if threw salt on the pizza when I was not looking and he denied.  So my comment would be “cut back on the salt and you will go places”.   One fork up.

 

 

Now for the meat and potatoes of this trip. The Tail of the Dragon, The Gap… the holy crap what did I get sign up for here?  To refresh my friends and family, the Dragon is 318 curves in 11 miles. Mind you that this is a road through heavy think woods with drastic change in elevation.

 

 

It’s hard to find words to explain the experience.  Imagine a roller coaster with blind turn after blind turn but you have to control the coaster. Numerous switchback curves, one after another. This is not your Sunday joy riding.  It is very technical.   I found myself in second gear most of the time either for engine braking or to use the power of my bike to get me through the corners.  There were even a few spots where I was not dragging my foot pegs but my boots were scraping the roads. The corners are that tight with banked turns.

 

 

Since there are no real shoulders to pull off on to take pictures. I will post up a video later of the roads I traveled from another rider.  Overall, I have to say that I loved it.  I can see why riders are coming here in droves. It is very addicting. The experience was incredible. In fact, I called my wife at the end of the day to thank her for letting me buy a motorcycle. Then I told her thanks for letting me going on the trip.  The only thing more beautiful than my current surroundings is my wife and little girl at home.

 

Stay tuned for Day 3.  

[Razors]

It is currently 12:45 local time and we are back in the room to regroup.  We headed out to ride the Cherohala Skyway back to Tennessee and then decided to go check out the surrounding area heading south.  I will go into detail later but for now, I will let this mornings pictures do the talking.

[Fourstring]

Hey man, sorry we missed you (probably by not more than a few hours!)

We're down in Blairsville, GA right now.  I'll post up all when we get back home!

[Razors]

It's all good. Have a safe trip back.  We are currently in Nashville. We should be back on Thursday night. I will finish up the report then.

[mxvet57]

It's all good. Have a safe trip back.  We are currently in Nashville. We should be back on Thursday night. I will finish up the report then.

hope you miss all the storms were having.

[Razors]

Thanks MXVET!

That Could Have Been My Head. Like I Need Another Hole In It

Matt and I are home now.   We are back a day early due to another bad storm front moving into the area on Friday.  We are a little sore but happy to be back  with the wife and kids.  This was a great trip which I would do again.  I am kind of jumping ahead here but I can't believe it's over already.  I had such a blast. I learned a lot about myself as a rider and a person.  When  you doing 500 mile days on two wheels, you get to think... a lot.

Anywho...  I guess you are wondering what happened above.  Matt and I were just getting ready to exit the interstate, for gas, after doing another 100 mile stretch.  As I was leading to the ramp, I noticed a large tractor mowing down the grass along the road to my right.  Just as I get to the incline of the ramp, I notice a long pipe coming at me,in the air,  in a circular motion, fast!  I did not see it until it was in my peripheral vision.  Just as I do see it, I think it is going to hit me in the head. I react by ducking quickly but never got on the brakes.  Next thing I know, the pipe hit the front of my bike taking a chunk of the windshield with it.  I never lost control of the bike and continued my path to the stop sign.

It was not till later that Matt explained the object better since he saw it coming.  He thought it was wider then the bike. At least 3 feet wide and about 2 inch in a diameter.  Matt said it looked like one end of the pipe was sheared off, probably from the tractor.  Think of a copper tube twisted in half.   I have to take his word for it as I barely saw it coming.  Dumb luck that I did not get impaled or lose my balance.   Luckily as I was able to ride home without having to do any repairs.   Glad it was not worse.

I will be posting more pics and wrapping up this report in a few days.

A big thanks to Matt for going along with me on this trip. I am sure glad I had  a partner in the "hills".   Also, another big thank you to my wife for letting me take the time off. You are the greatest!

[Jeremy Z]

Yeah, it was lucky that pipe didn't kill you. Did the tractor hit it while mowing or what? Did you talk to the tractor guy?

The damage looks minimal, like it couldn't have come out any better. You only need a new windscreen, right? A good time to go to a taller one, no?

[Razors]

I am assuming the object got kicked out from tractor. That must be one serious blade speed judging the way it was coming at me.  I didn't go back to talk to the guy. I thought about it. Not sure what my point would have been and what type of character I was going to be dealing with.

After the fact, Matt and I talked about the different scenarios. The what ifs.  What course of action I could have taken if it was worse.  Luckily, I was not injured and not more damaged to my bike. If there was more, I probably would have had a police report filled out for insurance purposes and let the insurance company deal with the local government. In my eyes, and Matt's point, the driver should have walked the area first. Who knows if he ever saw it since there was a lot of mud on it.

I will be replacing the screen. Not sure if I will go taller. I heard that you get no wind at all.  The Bandits give off a lot of heat. I might stick to the same size but might go clear so I can mount a camera. Still undecided.   As far as I can tell, that is the only damage. I don't think the plastic covering the cluster was pushed in. Again, got away real lucky all things considering.

[bomber]

Do NOT go buy a Lottery ticket -- I'm thinkin you used up most of your good luck for the wekk! Glad it wasn't worse, and glad you had what sounds like a great time --

You clearly are the best judge as to routing, amount of distance to be covered in a day, and how you'll deal with it -- go figure!

[Razors]

We left our hotel somewhere around 1:00 after our morning ride.  It appeared that rain was on its way but now it was pushed back to early afternoon.  We rode back to the  Tail of the Dragon which is 20 miles from where we are staying. Lesson learned here.....    When you map something, it is a straight line from point A to point B. If you want  accurate distance,  you need to route it.  When I was picking out hotels to stay at, Google Maps shows the Two Wheels Inn seven miles from the Deals Gap Resort.   When I actually plugged in the the resort to the GPS from the Deals Gap resort , it showed me 20 more miles.  O'well. It was actually a nice ride.

The Tree of Shame (ironically, the Saturn is not part of the tree)

At the Deals Gap Resort, they have this Tree of Shame. Basically, it is a collection of bike parts as a result of crashes on the Dragon.  It is pretty interesting.

                                                                                                                                     

After buying some souvenirs, we headed out out. We received word that there was an 18 wheeler stuck up on the dragon backing up traffic.  Matt and I headed back towards the resort area but checked out some new areas to us.  We stopped at this Memorial along the way.


From where we are staying, unless you want fast food, there were not many options.  On our GPS units,  we looked for food in the area.  We found a small town called Andrew.  We saw this place on the unit but figured it was a little more then we wanted to spend since it was called "Steak and Seafood".
We found the restaurant but agreed that if we could not find anything else, we would try this place.  Let me add here that this is a dry county. The county is large.  Most places close at 8:00 and it was closing time for most.  I jokingly told Matt that it was our lucky day. Since there were no other places to go, we were having steak and seafood.

We pulled in, not even sure if this was place was open but it was.  We walked in and my mouth dropped.  It was a newly renovated diner with booths  and no linens in sight.  Plus they had Wheel of Fortune on the TV next to the hanging kayak on the wall.

The red light start spinning in my head.  Back home we would call this a Greek  restaurant but this was country style.   The food was OK.  I had the most unhealthy meal for this trip.  Country fried steak and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy. I managed to eat the chicken but there was so much gravy, the potatoes became liquid.   Note to self... don't ask for smothered anything when in the south. Careful for what you ask for.

Yup, the bikes had there own a garage at the Two Wheels Inn.
I would stay here again.

I ended the night on a good note.  We went back to the room and parked the bikes in the garage for the night. I then lit up a Rocky Patel cigar and enjoyed the sun down.  Matt and I were going to the pavilion to chill out.(see image below) On the way, we stopped to talk to some fellow riders. Next thing I know, I am enjoying some beer which led to vodka which lead to after 11:00.  I know, its not that late but Matt and I wanted to get off to an early start. I wanted to avoid a hangover and I did.  I didn't want to end the night but I wanted to be rested  for the hot ride to Birmingham.  So I drank up and headed back to the room.  To the Florida Harley chick, thanks for the vodka and stay away from land sharks :-)

The pavilion at the Two Wheels Inn

Our view behind the resort