Isolating Myself from Isolation

“I need to get out of this place, if it’s the last thing I ever do………”.

I sing that line to Roo whenever I have had enough of domestic life, which lately, has been quite often. Friday came around with a beautiful, cool, sunshine morning. I dropped the top on “Matchbox”, and took a three hour tour into the mountains.

But it wasn’t enough.

Covid19 has had us self isolating now since March, and bit by bit, has been taking it’s toll on us. Roo has been coping with it better than I, she being more of a homebody. I however, am not. I needed to regain some sense of normalcy in my life.

I had ridden my motorbike exactly 400 measly miles since March. My reason for not doing so? Fear. Fear of having a wreck and landing in a hospital. Bad time to be in a hospital, I reasoned. Fear of financial ruin. Our business had been forced closed by state order. Fear. No income, and huge medical bills. Fear.

All this time, Roo had been insistent that I go. She couldn’t take me anymore! But she knew how therapeutic riding is for me.

So finally, last week I went. I said “screw it”, and took off on a 100 mile ride in the mountains of North Carolina.

I returned home with a big grin on my face. Roo asked how my ride was.

“Wonderful!” I said. “I was so focused, so very in the moment the whole time. Alone, in my helmet, the rest of the world and all the bullshit going on was ‘out there’. I didn’t realize how much I needed to isolate myself from isolation.”

Peace, Tranquility and Twisty Tarmac in the North Georgia Mountains

What do you do when you feel like life is beating you down? For me, it’s about immersing myself in nature, and one of my favorite ways to do so is to hop on my motorbike and head to the mountains for a three day moto camping therapy session.

This trip was to the North Georgia Mountains, where I had three beautiful sun drenched days and bright, gorgeous moonlit nights. And of course, the motorcycle and sports car serpentine mountain roads that course through the National Forests here. Roads like Wolfpen Gap Road (passes to you Westerners and Euro folks) with it’s posted 10 MPH curves, Russell Scenic Byway carving up Hogpen Mountain through the National Forest, GA HWY 60, twisting through the trees testing your eyesight with constant alternating sunlight and shade. It was a perfect weekend of moto therapy.

HOME BASE

The roads here are fantastic. My intent on this gorgeous weekend was to bag all six gaps (passes) through these mountains. It’s only about 100 miles or so, a bit more if you do some exploring. There is an actual mapped out route that has been drawn up with a title, appropriately named, The Six Gap Loop. Neels Gap, Hogpen Gap, Unicoi Gap, Wolfpen Gap, Woody’s Gap and Jack’s Gap comprise the six mountain gaps. Don’t let the low total mileage fool you, these mountain loops will have you working it and taking a nap by the time you roll back into camp.

Lunch is a pretty big deal here at Two Wheels. Folks come from miles around on two and four wheels. Food is pretty damn good too. They serve up dinner also.

Always, always, take pictures of your bike (but not too many).

Riding these mountain roads, for me, is very Zen. Mindfulness plays a key role in all my motorcycle and sports car driving, but the beauty of these mountains and the traffic free roads just draw you into that elusive sweet spot every time.

As mentioned earlier, by days end these mountain roads had me pleasantly tired. Rolling back into camp and heading for the showers, I was greeted, sort of, by my new friend, Mr. Tee.

Play with Mr. Tee for a few moments, crack open a beer, sit in my camp chair and soak in the beauty of nature in the park-like setting of the campground while waiting for the dinner chimes to sound. What a wonderful day. Therapy complete. Life is good.

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Land of the Noonday Sun

Nantahala. Cherokee language translated as land of the noonday sun. And that is quite precisely the only time that the Nantahala Gorge sees any sunshine, that small window of yellow light as the sun climbs over the easterly mountains to its zenith, and then immediately begins its westward descent, and the gorge is once again enveloped in shadow.

I was just up the mountain in Western North Carolina, attending the 10th annual Honda NC700 owners gathering at the Kickstand Lodge, a great place to moto camp or rent cabins when in the area. It is located in Stecoah, North Carolina, in the middle of nowhere between Robbinsville and Bryson City.

Kickstand Lodge

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The grounds are beautiful, the staff very friendly, and of course, there is a camp dog. Newly acquired at only four months old, this is Jo-Jo, a chocolate Lab. She loves belly rubs, and yes, that is my hand she is using as a chew toy!

Jo-Jo

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My riding this weekend would have me on two fantastic motorcycling roads: Wayah Road, accessed from the Nantahala Gorge, and the Cherohala Skyway, an indescribable twisty, 50+ miles one way from Robbinsville, North Carolina to the little hamlet of Tellico Plains, Tennessee. It had been years since I had ridden either of these roads. I was pumped. Both are very scenic, and, as I was zoned in on the curves on the Cherohala, I neglected to stop and take photos! Here are a few from Wayah Road:

After a short warmup, the twisties begin ahead!

Wayah Road begins its ascent up to Wayah Bald, where a hard pack dirt road and short hike will take you to the summit. I elected to forego the summit, having been there before. I was getting hungry, and Franklin, North Carolina was at the end of the road. So was lunch. The descent into Franklin is a nice twisty two lane, but caution is advised, as the in and out of sunlight plays tricks with your eyes and a crucial curve may be missed. How those Isle of Man TT guys do it I’ll never know. Finally pulling into Franklin and searching for a parking space on Main Street, I came upon this:

A car show!

As much a car guy as motorcyclist, this was a moto weekend, and I was hungry, so I passed the car show by.

Back in the saddle and onward to Tennessee via the Cherohala Skyway. As mentioned previously, no photos: I was in such a sweet spot winding through the Skyways curves that I didn’t want to stop and break the spell. What a fantastic road.

It was a long day in the saddle on curvaceous mountain roads. Seven hours and 230 miles later I was back at Kickstand Lodge and sufficiently tired. A shower, a couple of beers and dinner with the guys put a great cap on the day. Oh, and we found the true location of Sasquatch.

If you’re ever in the middle of Nowhere, North Carolina, check out these roads. And stop in at KSL and say hey to Jo-Jo (don’ forget the belly rub!).

 

Expanding The Motoring Horizons

Change is constant, we are told,and although it doesn’t seem like it on this blog, the reality is our adventures have modified a bit. Periodically, those of you who follow this blog see a post thrown in with our Mazda Miata MX-5 Roadster as the main character. We have had the little four wheeled sport bike going on two years now, ever since Roo has not been able to ride a motorbike due to back surgery. The MX-5 has become her “motorcycle.”

This change coincided with the motorbike downsize from my Honda ST1300 to now, my Honda NC700XD, which I ride solo. Even though the method of conveyance changes from time to time, the intent is the same: to have fun blasting back roads and touring on two wheels or four, seeing interesting places our readers might like to visit, and reporting on motoring events we attend.

 

So, we decided to combine our passions of touring by motorcycle and sports car into one blog site. Many motorcyclists are sports car enthusiasts and vice versa. Content will continue as mentioned above, but beginning with the next post, the site will be            re-named Motoring Adventures. Categories will also change to make it easier to find specific motorcycle or sports car content.

We invite you to continue to follow us on our adventures, and although some trips will be driven in the MX-5, the roads taken will all be motorcycling roads!

“Everything will change, then will change again”

-Tom Petty

 

Git Yer Sticker

 

US129, Deals Gap,Tail of the Dragon.Three hundred and eighteen curves in eleven miles. Every motorcyclist and sports car enthusiast knows the name, both here in the States and abroad. If you don’t, you’re not getting out enough, or not reading enough. It has been marketed in every motorcycle and sports car magazine ad nauseam since the early 2000’s. It is a huge tourist dollar generator for the section of western North Carolina and east Tennessee in which the tarmac resides. And depending on the day of the week, your mountain riding skill, and the skill level of other users, it has the potential to ruin your day.

It has been a tradition of mine to run the Gap with every new motorbike I purchase, a rite of passage for the bike, if you will. And so, a perfect weekend unfolded for my Honda NC700XD to run with the big dogs and skinny up those chicken strips a bit, and have her proudly wear the sticker shown above. Every motorcyclist and sports car driver who has “tamed” The Dragon recognizes that symbol and what it stands for.

Don’ be this guy. The dragon tail will bite you if you’re not on your “A” game

On a beautiful July Friday morning I jumped on the NC and headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Ironhorse Motorcycle Resort in Stecoah, North Carolina. Situated right off Highway 28, a fantastic moto road in and of itself, Ironhorse is my favorite “upscale” moto campground. No primitive camping here.

Scenes from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Ironhorse Motorcycle Resort. If you want to camp in style, this is the place.

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Saturday morning was beautiful. I awoke early to get a head start towards Deals Gap. Weekend traffic on The Dragon can be daunting, with most riders and drivers making US129 their personal racetrack. But if you get their early enough, usually anytime before 10 AM, traffic is less, and the squids haven’t recovered from the night before. I ate breakfast, and with a double espresso for that AM caffeine bbbooooosssstttt, I had wheels rolling north on Hwy 28 by eight-thirty.

Hwy 28, also known as The Hellbender, is a fantastic motorcycle road that T-intersects at US129 where The Dragon begins. A Hellbender is a salamander found only in Appalachia, and grows to over two and-a-half feet long. When it swims, it twists and squirms through the water, just like this ribbon of tarmac does on land.

My one photo stop on Hwy 28 is the Fontana Dam, from the bottom. Fontana Lake was formed when the dam was built, submerging the homes and town of the folks that populated the valley.

Fontana Dam

Arriving at the Gap and the start of The Dragon about 9:45 AM, I noticed that there was a surprising low volume of motorbikes and sports cars in the parking lot, and no one waiting to start their run. I might have some of this road to myself! Without hesitation, I made a right turn onto US129 North and the start of The Dragon.

The scenery on this road is beautiful, but you don’t dare take your eyes off the road. There is one scenic pullout on this eleven mile stretch, and I stopped to take a photo of the Fontana Dam and Fontana Lake, this time, from above.

Fontana Dam & Lake

It has been 12 years since I ran The Dragon, and that was two up with Roo on our Honda ST1300. A fantastic photo (taken by Killboy; more on that later) hanging in our living room shows us leaned over carving a right hand curve with a Shelby Cobra right behind us. Awesome!

This day, I was flying solo on my NC. What a blast! Every vehicle imaginable was out there: bikes, trikes, sports cars, sedans. I even saw a Cadillac coming in the opposite direction around a curve at speed with his engine howling! Amazing!

Polaris Slingshots are getting more popular, and were out in force this day

Out and back, that 22 miles went quick. But it was getting close to 11:30, and everyone and their mother was coming out to play. Time to head into the parking lot, get my sticker, and people watch.

When I finished my run, The Dragon Store parking lot was filling up

Pretty much everyone obeyed this sign, at least while I was there

Killboy is the premier photo taking company on The Dragon. They set up in multiple places along the 11 mile stretch, on both sides of the road, and take photos of every vehicle that passes, in both directions. They are then uploaded onto their website where you can log on and purchase your photo(s). And yes I did. They now have their own store located right across the street from The Dragon store.

Killboy

Dragon Yard Art at Killboy

Dragon Yard Art at The Dragon Store (photo op)

The Tree of Shame (Stupidity)

The Tree of Shame (official name) is where bits of bikes come to rest after the rider crashes on The Dragon. Contrary to what the name describes, many riders where this as a badge of honor, as if not having the skill set to control your motorcycle in curvy mountain terrain is something to be proud of. I’ll stick with Tree of Stupidity and leave it at that.

After motorbike and sports car shopping for a while it was time to play on some of the other mountain roads in this mecca of motorcycling. Roo and I have ridden many roads that are more technical than The Dragon, but none have been marketed so heavily and so successfully as US129. A must do if you are in the area, multiple runs if you can, but do get here early!