Labor Day Weekend ride to Suches

[klaviator]

Let's see.  Three Day Weekend.  Fantastic weather forecast and a bike I bought three month's ago and still hadn't taken on a trip.

What should I do???

I'll add in an old buddy who just retired, moved back from Utah and bought a cabin in the North Georgia mountains last week.

And there would be a bunch of cool old bikes at TWoS that weekend.

The answer was obvious to the most casual observer.  Time for a road trip.

So I loaded up my new Smax, fired up the mighty 155cc engine and off I went.

After a boring ride to Scottsboro I soon hit some more interesting roads.



I didn't take a lot of pics on the way because I had ridden all these roads many times before.  I did stop at the overlook near Ft Mountain.



After 234 miles I pulled into TWoS which had a packed parking lot.  I took pics of some of the old bikes.



I'm old enough to remember when these bikes came out.



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I guess the old CBX was a real slug so........



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[klaviator]

Then it was time to set up my camp.  While I was setting up another bamarides member, LT, came up and introduced himself.  He had ridden up from the Bham area on his V Strom 650.  So we talked a bit.  Later we had dinner at the lodge then hung out BSing late into the night.  There was another guy there from Cullman.  He's not on this forum but does know Nice Goat and Agoodwin.  Then someone built a fire and we hung out there with a few more riders.

I was up early the next morning.  Got some pics of the campground.  It was looking like it would be a beautiful day



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LT and the guy from Cullman.

[klaviator]

After a good breakfast at the lodge it was time to ride.  I headed off for the Northeast corner of Georgia.  This is lake Winfield Scott on 180:



I made my way over to Seed Lake and Lake Rabun.  I went exploring on some roads I had never ridden.



So this road in the pic above twisted it's way up a mountain and past some houses and a church and then into the wilderness.  Suddenly it turned into perfect pavement, sportbike paradise with some nice curves and great scenery

I couldn't believe I had never ridden or even heard of this road

Then after a few miles of this:



So after about a quarter mile of dirt I turned around and explored some more. 



I went down a really awesome road perfect for a small scooter.  It was twisty as hell with a lot of cabins on it as it wound it's was along a lake.  I didn't get any pics that do it any justice.



Lake Burton Rd.  This road is twistier than the dragon but has a lot of driveways on it.  Very scenic.  Chuck A had a close encounter on this road a couple of years ago.

[klaviator]

After several hundred curves I made it back to TWoS.  It was more crowded than I have seen it in years.  This pic doesn't really show how many bikes there were.



Still a bunch of old bikes.



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Later I rode up to my buddies new place and then we had dinner in Blue Ridge.

[klaviator]

I took advantage of the morning light to get this pic of the waterfall across the street from TWoS.



Some one came up to me on the porch and said "Hi Win".  I had never seen him before but he knew me from my ADV ride reports.  He also recently joined Bamarides.  Of course I suffer from a severe case of CRS so don't ask me his name.  He also lives in Huntsville and recently bought this beautiful Versys from Allsport.



There was a huge line for breakfast so I went out and rode the "cooler run"  It's a 36 mile loop.  60 to 19 to 129 over Blood Mountain, then 180 back to Suches.  It was a great ride and early enough in the morning that there wasn't too much traffic to spoil the fun.

Then I ate breakfast and hung out for a while talking to various people, many old friends.

One of thise was Mimi who worked here when Britt & GT owned it.  Some of you may remember her.



So what do you do if you want to carry more stuff but don't want to tow a trailer?

Here's one guys answer to that question.



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[klaviator]

All good things must come to an end.  I had to head home.  At least there were some nice roads on the way.



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So I had a great weekend.  the weather was fantastic.  The Smax did great.  You don't need 1000cc+ to go touring.  I didn't rack up huge miles but my total was 234 + 220 + 267 = 721 miles. 

Gas Mileage.  My first fill up after running 60-70 on the highway was 66 MPG.  After that I got around 75-80 MPG while loaded up with all my gear and 85-90 while riding around the mountains without all my camping gear.  So even with the higher gas prices I didn't go broke.

My bill at TWoS for 2 nights of camping, 2 breakfasts, one lunch and one dinner was a whopping 65 bucks.

[this_guy]

Great pics and ride report, as always! I was planning to head that way this weekend too but it didnt quite work out. Next time!

[LT]

Nice to meet you. Great ride report.

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[Bamagator]

Great write up and pics my friend.  Also a kick to see those classic bikes.

[merc16]

Thanks for the report Win ! Could you post your route that you used to get there ?