Riding paved goat paths in Tennessee

[klaviator]

Paved Goat Paths?  That wasn't my intention when I set out on this ride but that's what happened.

So here's the story.  After a good ride on Saturday I really wasn't sure where I was going to ride on Sunday.  @Moto Guzzi  expressed an interest in riding with me so I set up a meeting in Taft.  Next thing I knew @KevinB and @speedfire where also coming.  That's pretty hard core since all these guys have to ride up from the Birmingham area.  That's just a "bit" further than the 32 miles for me to ride to Taft.

So my plan was to ride a mix of paved and unpaved roads that I knew and also try to find some good new roads.  We met in Taft at 11 and headed off.  We did an easy gravel road, some nice paved roads and then Vanzant road.  This road starts out going up a badly rutted hill before leveling off to a nice scenic gravel road.



Then a little pavement and another gravel road.  Followed by some poorly paved but fun roads.  Well they were fun on our DS and ADV bikes.  I'm not sure most street bikes would be that much fun on these roads. 

Nice scenery:



I wonder if these cows are as happy as California cows?

[klaviator]

There were some steep hills and tight hairpins.  We did a photoshoot at one of them.



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Shedding some layers as it was getting warmer.

[klaviator]

A little after noon we stopped for lunch.



Good food.  Good service.  Good company.  What more can you ask for?  How about a waitress who takes your pic?



This was on the menu:

[KevinB]

Great ride today Win...thanks for posting up and leading!

[klaviator]

As we were paying our bills the cashier mentioned that she used to ride and recommended a road that she claimed was really curvy and fun to ride.  Since my plan was to wander around we took her advice.

Before we took off I got a pic of Downtown Delina.



We rode North to 129, west on 129 and north on 272 which we followed to Lewisburg.  272 was a very nice road.  It would be fun on any kind of bike.  We turned around and headed south on 272 but as fun as it was, we were on DS/ADV bikes so we turned off 172 on a back road.  We soon found ourselves on some really cool single lane paved roads going through some rugged and scenic countryside.

 

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My pics don't really show the roads.  There were a lot of tight curves and steep hills.  Eventually we ended up back on 272 and then 129 west.  We turned off on another back road.  This road was paved but turned into a very narrow, bumped and rutted goat trail.  Normally roads like this aren't paved.  This one was but was about as rough as most gravel roads.  Again, my pic doesn't do it justice.



Afterwards someone mentioned they were surprised this road actually went through.  It did and we ended up on a nice curvy paved road which took us here:



We took a break then rode some more.



Did I mention it was a beautiful day.  It would have been a sin to not go riding on a day like this!



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We ended up back in Taft after 110 miles of fun riding.  That doesn't include the miles to get to Taft and back home.  I rode 175 miles total but everyone else had to be well over 300 miles.

Kevin, Shane and Dave, thanks for riding all that way to do this ride.  I enjoyed it and hope to ride with ya'll again soon.

[Nice Goat]

Goat paths are always the best, but I may be biased. :D

[RubyRider]

Looks like Y'all had a really fun day! Thanks for sharing your trip!

[Moto Guzzi]

That was fun!  Some nice paved roads, dirt/gravel roads and some good old lumpy bumpy country roads! Thanks for leading.  320 miles total for me on the day.

The DR turned another milestone on the way home this afternoon.

[klaviator]

That's some serious miles on an air cooled single!

[klaviator]

Just in case anyone is wondering, it led this ride without help of GPS.  I have now been up into that part of Tennessee a few times.  Every time I rode some new roads.  Following thinwater a few weeks ago got me on some roads I might never have explored on my own.  When I get back from rides I  normally look at google maps and try to figure out where I rode.

My goal in all this, besides the fact that I love to ride and this is fun, is to learn the roads well enough to be able to lead a really good ride and not have to just "wander around".  Wandering around works fine with a small group like we had yesterday but It wouldn't work so well with a big group. 

So there is a lot of great riding up in that part of Tennessee, both street and dual sport.  I plan on posting up some more rides to that area and will try give a little more notice than some of my recent rides.

[Guidedawg]

That looks like a great day of exploring!  Thanks for leading and sharing the story.

[Hammerdown77]

That goat path road was probably Ebeneezer Hollow (Holler) Rd.  I found that one by accident one time and thought it was pretty cool. I also prayed I wouldn't come upon a combine or something in the opposite direction around one of the blind corners/hills....

[klaviator]

That goat path road was probably Ebeneezer Hollow (Holler) Rd.  I found that one by accident one time and thought it was pretty cool. I also prayed I wouldn't come upon a combine or something in the opposite direction around one of the blind corners/hills....

It was Ebeneezer hollow.

[Hammerdown77]

Did anyone in the group have a GPS that you could pull tracks from? This is probably the best way to actually get a "real" route for a larger group ride from these exploratory forays. I always forget to do this on my rides. I did like a month's worth of exploring in that area over a year ago but I neglected to save any of the tracks, so I don't have them anymore, which is a pity because I found a couple of really interesting roads (paved and unpaved) and I'll be darned if I haven't been able to find them since.

Also, if someone has a smartphone with Google location tracking enabled, then you can pull it from their Google account. Only issue there is you might have some gaps due to poor data service coverage. GPS is the best way (or a real map, and highlighters).

[KevinB]

I had my Garmin with me, but wasn't tracking.