Sunday, July 20, 2014

Wild Hogs VI, Day 4

The day started out much like yesterday. It was raining and cool. Since the forecast was for more of the same for the foreseeable future, we decided that the best course of action would be to start heading north to ease the length of our ride home on Sunday. Someone (Tony) suggested that it might be a good idea to jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway and just roll along at the 45 mph speed limit. The rain is much less stinging at 45 than 65. It seemed to make sense, right? But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel. A lot of hotels now offer a complimentary hot breakfast. All the ones we stayed at did. Once we finished, it was time to pack up and get on the road. That's when the first fiasco of the day started. Apparently Scott's switch for his LED lights on his bike got wet from the heavy rains we had had overnight and the moisture had shorted it causing the lights to be on all night. That was enough to weaken the battery to the point that it wouldn't start. I should have gotten some video of the guys pushing him around the hotel parking lot, as it was quite the comedy show, but, I was too busy laughing at them to think to break out the phone. Of course, it was raining quite nicely at the time also, just adding to the amusement of many of the guests who were pretty sure we were nuts to start with. I did get a couple of pics of the guys jumping the bike after Scott walked across the street to another hotel to borrow some jumper cables (ours didn't have any but thought the one across the street did.).


 We got the bike running and we were ready to head out.

The night before a couple of the guys had decided to walk up the road to a biker wear store (Maggie Valley Biker Wear) we had passed on the way into town. They were in search of better rain gear, as theirs was not doing the job. They met the owner, a good ole' boy who looked for all the world like Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty. That was another missed opportunity where we should have taken a picture. We decided to make a stop there before heading out of town as I was in need of a new rain suit and a couple of the others who couldn't decide the night before had decided to take the plunge (pun intended). I was looking mine over at the hotel, trying to figure out how so much water was getting in. When I held it up to the light, there were a lot of places where you could see right through it. It's one of those nylon that's had pvc applied to the inside of it, to waterproof it. In many spots the pvc coating was completely gone. Mostly at the normal wear point like the shoulders, knees and shins where the suit rubs or is buffeted by wind while riding, but those are also the points that take the most rain. No wonder I was getting so wet!

We walked into the place, and the first thing the guy says is, "Boy, you brought you a big one with you today" (obviously referring to me). One of my brothers said, "Yea that's the one we told you about. Do you have a rain suite that will fit him?". (Now I know from the start I am opening myself up to all sorts of "Omar the tent maker" jokes from my ever so sensitive friends, family and co-workers). Frankly I was skeptical, because very rarely does a shop of this type have anything that comes even remotely close to fitting me. Today I was pleasantly surprised. He walked right over to a rack and pulled off this jacket and handed to me to try on. It fit! Needless to say, I am the proud owner of a new NexGen rain suit at a very reasonable price. By the way, a neat trick to getting the pants on without catching your boots in the lining, is to put a plastic bag over your boot before inserting it into the pant leg, and it slides right through! Thanks Uncle Si! (we didn't get his real name). A couple of the other guys made their purchases as well, and we were ready to hit the road.

Did I mention the logical suggestion to run the BRP instead of the highway to avoid the stinging rain at highway speeds, and how we all agreed it was a good idea? Well, having only visited the BRP in good weather, it never occurred to us that there might be other issues besides the stinging of raindrops.

We left Maggie Valley heading east along Rt. 19, knowing that we would meet up with the Parkway. We gassed up before getting on the Parkway since there is no gas actually on it. We entered at Asheville heading north. It wasn't very long until the first of the issues became pretty evident. It was getting colder the further we climbed. Most of the Parkway runs at between 3000 and 5000 feet, and that is a whole other weather climate. Ok, so it was getting chilly, but I was wearing enough layers, that I was going to be fine. It wasn't my first rodeo with the temperature difference at higher altitudes.

The next issue was fog (cloud cover actually). Visibility dropped to 10 or 15 feet at times. This makes for some interesting riding. Especially when you are in the lead with nobody to follow and there are any number of unplanned ways to descend the mountain which would not be the preferred method for anyone wanting to make it home.

The final issue became the wind, which we had not considered at all. This is the first time I was in a situation where there was heavy fog and gusting winds. Usually the two are mutually exclusive, not on the BRP. So here we are at nearly 5000 feet in almost zero visibility at temps in the 50's with wind driven rain.

We made it to the "Craggy Gardens Visitor Center" about 20 miles from where we entered the Parkway and sought refuge inside. They had a wood stove burning and the lady park ranger was very nice. We asked where the first exit to civilization was going north. She suggested either Rt. 80 about 20 miles north, or Little Switzerland about 30 miles. She strongly suggested going the extra 10 miles to Little Switzerland as Rt. 80, while on my map of recommended rides, was treacherous with a lot of switchbacks which could be an issue with the visibility.

We set out again feeling our way through the fog, wind and rain. The only good thing about the fog was the fact that you couldn't see how bad it might go if you strayed off the road. It was so thick and wind driven, that most of the tunnels in that area of the Parkway were full of fog as well. We came to the first of our possible exits from the parkway, but when we were right on it and we could barely make out the sign, we decided to move on. We arrived at Little Switzerland about a half hour later (remember it was only ten miles) and at least at that point we could make out the sign.

We exited onto Rt. 226A which if it hadn't been for the weather conditions, would have been a great ride. Sweeping curves going down the mountains, and the visibility opened up to 40 or 50 feet almost immediately and was completely clear about halfway down. We reached the town of Marion (if that sounds familiar it's because we stopped there on day 2) and stopped to have some lunch at a Wendy's. By this time it was after 4 pm. We had been on the road about 5 hours and covered a distance of about 70 miles. We were obviously DONE with the Parkway.

Now the debate became, how to proceed and what was our goal destination for the night. It was still raining, but it looked like the rain was soon to be east of us. Of course we needed to head northeast, so there were many discussions of the best route to take advantage of the speed and direction of the weather (isn't it amazing that we can now call up current radar on our phone?). In the end we decided that we were going to get rained on no matter what so we decided to take the "quickest" route to get us to Roanoke, VA for the night.

We struck out and had pretty good luck. We hit light rain off and on with some heavier pockets here and there, but nothing like the sustained rains we had earlier and on Friday. We made pretty good time and by 9:30 or 10 we were in the Roanoke area to search for a hotel. We had all agreed that we would like to be on the north side of Roanoke, unfortunately, we went just a little too far north and there was nothing to be found. We pulled off to stretch at a gas station at "Natural Bridge, VA" and decided that we would press on to Lexington about 10 miles up the road.

It was then that Jay dropped the bomb that he had decided to press on home because he had many pressing family things with a family vacation at the shore starting tomorrow and he preferred to ride through the night now, rather than push through in the morning and be rushed to get everyone one off for New Jersey in time to get their camper out of storage and set up. I completely understand his reasoning, but at the same time, I was not willing to let him make the run by himself in the middle of the night in the rain, so I volunteered to ride through with him.

We said our goodbyes to the others and they headed up the road to a nice warm dry hotel room. I topped off my gas tank and Jay and I set out north. Now, we had run out of the rain around the VA state line, but radar told us that there was more to come. We hit heavy rains around the Charlottesville area and had it for about 50 miles. Once we got to the Winchester area we ran out of the rain for good. The trip went smoothly except for an attempted gas stop in Hagerstown MD. The only station indicated on the signage was closed and there was nothing else around, so we ran up another exit and found gas. We made it home by 3 am, safe and sound. So, I am home a day early from an adventure after a marathon ride that started in Maggie Valley NC, at about 11 am and ended here in Harrisburg, PA at about 3 am. It didn't turn out quite like we had planned, but it was a good week and one that I'm sure we will talk about for years to come. Safe travels to the rest of the crew today. There weather here in Harrisburg is gorgeous!

Friday, July 18, 2014

Wild Hogs VI, Day 3

Well, all great plans must be subject to change when circumstances change. As I indicated yesterday, our plan was to make another run at the "Tail of the Dragon" today. Unfortunately we woke up to rain this morning and it was unanimous that we didn't want to try that run in the rain. It was decided that we would instead take the scenic route through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

It started out very well. We had very little rain early on, though the radar promised big things to come. The road through the park and over the mountains was very good. It's a narrow two lane road that winds for several miles along a mountain stream before climbing up into the mountains. This is some of the most beautiful scenery in the country and had the roads been dry, it couldn't have been beat. We made a stop at a small waterfall to look at the stream and watch some kids jumping off the rocks and swimming.



As we moved higher into the mountains it became more interesting, as the weather deteriorated and the temperature dropped as well. This would have been a spectacular ride if the weather had not been a factor. I highly recommend a trip along Rt. 73, 74 and 441 through the Smoky Mountain National Park, but do it on a nice day. We climbed over the 5000 ft mark through rain, wind and sometimes very dense fog. The temps were very chilly as well. When the fog would clear the views were amazing! Unfortunately we did not get pics, as we were inclined to keep moving to get to the other side. The fog we experienced was how this group of mountains got their name. Apparently the plan life on the mountain puts out a lot of CO2 often causing fog or clouds to hang in and around the ridges of the mountains. These clouds look like smoke.

We finally descended from the mountains into the town of Cherokee which is in the Cherokee Indian Reservation. We stopped at a Hardee's for lunch, then moved on to Maggie Valley, NC, home of the Wheels Through Time Museum, made popular on the Velocity channel TV show "What's in the Barn". They have the most amazing collection of vintage motorcycles as well as some cars and other unique thing. One of the really amazing things is that these bikes all run. As you can imagine I took a LOT of pics. I of course cannot share them all here, but, here are a few.

     


 Tomorrow promises more rain as does Sunday so we shall see. We decided to stay here in Maggie Valley as we were pretty waterlogged. We will just decide our next move in the morning. Wish us luck!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Wild Hogs VI, Day 2

We woke up this morning in the comfort of our Holiday Inn Express hotel room. There were only a few short steps to the bathroom vs. the normal trek to some bath house in whatever campground we usually have chosen for the week, and, we had to fight off the urge to advise the EMTs at the fire station next door on how to do their jobs. Of course we really don't know anything about their jobs, but after all, we did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night! Once we were squared away with our morning duties, it was downstairs for the a pretty decent breakfast, as complimentary breakfasts go. Then it was time to load up and hit the road.

We put in a very hard day of riding. We started off on the Blue Ridge Parkway again putting 150 or so miles in before moving off in search of lunch and more gas for the bikes. We saw some amazing sights along the way including Grandfather Mountain and the Linn Cove Viaduct.

Linn Cove Viaduct
Grandfather Mountain



One of the best views of the day
Interesting fact



















One of many vistas
More Vistas










More Views










At that point we decided to take the shortest route to the "Tail of the Dragon" as that was our major objective of the day and we had about another 150 miles to go to get there. Now it's at this point that things got a little out of hand for some in the group. In our haste to assure reaching the "Tail" we may have pushed some of the others a little too hard on the ride. We ran non-stop for over two hours and 130 miles or so sometimes in rather frantic traffic on the highway around Asheville, NC. When we did pull over for the first time, we got an earful (and rightfully so) about pushing so hard and a possible minor case of "road rage" along the way with a white pickup truck who did not meet some of our standards of road "etiquette".

The Crew at Deals Gap
We did reach Deals Gap late in the day (between 6 and 6:30 pm). We had a short time to peruse the store at the resort there before closing time, then it was time to "tame the Dragon". As each of us has different riding abilities and experience we all agreed that each would run the tail on his own terms. I was first out followed by my brother Jay and my nephew Scottie. The other 4 came out behind them, but promised to see us at the other end by morning (they are not quite the reckless souls that we in the first three are). It was a great run.



The "Tree of Shame"
Getting there late in the day made it good in the fact that there were very few on the road at that time. In fact, I didn't run into anyone going our directions at all. We did pass several bikes and other vehicles going in the opposite direction, but nothing going our way. I also did not run into any of my "law enforcement brothers" which was nice since I believe there may have been a statute or two bruised in my run. I did the 11 mile run in roughly 18.5 minutes which is not too bad when you consider the 318 curves in those 11 miles. The main thing is that a good time was had by all, and everyone did it safely. We have decided to take another run at it in the morning. I anticipate more traffic, but hope to improve on today's run a little.


After our battle with the "Dragon" we headed north towards Knoxville to find some dinner and accommodations for the night. Dinner ended up being at a Hardees in Maryville TN. Dinner as you could guess was pretty unremarkable with the exception of the young lady who waited on us. She was young (I would guess not more than 16 or 17, but was extremely good at her job. Most of you I'm sure have eaten at a fast food joint at some time in the not too distant past and you likely were as disappointed in the attitude and caliber of service exhibited by the youth of today as I have been. I must tell you, our friend Michaela was an exception. She was single handedly running the counter/register, dropping and serving up fries and delivering the orders to the customers at their tables in the dining room. Kudos Michaela! You are a credit to your parents and the people who were smart enough to hire you, and whatever they pay you, it should be more (in fact we mentioned that to the manager on our way out).

Tonight we are staying in a Comfort Inn Suites across from the Knoxville Airport. The rooms are very nice and everything is very clean. Of course there is the sound of aircraft taking off now and then, but all in all a very nice place.

Tomorrow we will take another run at the "Dragon", then we shall see from there. I have made a promise to myself and the others that we will not push so hard the next few days. I am attempting to upload the video of my run on the tail, if it ever completes. The wireless here is a bit weak. Hopefully I will be able to include it here by morning. I also have photos to download from my phone, but that will have to wait til morning as it is already 0130 as I write this and I am ready for some sleep.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Wild Hogs VI Day 1




The crew ready to go
We got a fairly timely start this morning (just after 8 am). We made good time running down I-81, and we had unbelievable weather for the ride.






Lunch at a truck stop Wendy's


We stopped for lunch at a place called Raphine VA. It was just a Wendy's attached to a truck stop, but after a long couple of hundred miles of riding it sure tasted good.




View from one of the many overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway
From there we moved on to Roanoke where we took a road called "12 o'clock Knob Road" which took us to one of the access points for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Once on the Parkway we had an amazing ride for about another 100 miles south before exiting to find some dinner and a place to stay for the night in Mt. Airy NC.

The Lone Survivor

We found a place called Cappola's Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant where we enjoyed some very good pizza. We split 3 large pizzas among 7 of us and as you can see in the picture there was one surviving slice. (It should be noted that less than a minute after the photo was taken, that slice was no longer a survivor. And no, it was not me who killed it!)



So far it's been a great day of riding with great weather. It was remarkably cool up on the parkway, and we actually stopped for jackets along the way. It was probably about 15* warmer as we came down off the mountain into town. It could be very cool tomorrow morning.

This trip is very different form past years in the fact that we are not camping this year. We are staying in hotels. There's a little sense of loss with not having the campfire to sit around etc., but there's also something to be said for a bathroom 15 feet away instead of 1/4 mile. Tonight it's a Holiday Inn Express in Mt. Airy NC. Who knows what we'll know by morning due to staying here! Tomorrow is more of the BRP, then Great Smoky Mountain National Park and hopefully the "Tail of the Dragon". We will see how many miles we will get in tomorrow. Some of our more sensitive members are complaining of soreness already. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Wild Hogs VI

Less than 12 hours to the launch of the annual Cagno brothers Wild Hogs adventure. This year's destination is the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Time to start packing, more later.