Escaping the heat in Maggie Valley

[klaviator]

After Highlands we hit a fun road. Intense, steep hairpins, great scenery and a mile of dirt road thrown in. Normally that mile of dirt is no big deal but must have been recently graded and made the scooter feel squirrely. No big deal, it was only a mile.

Then we came to another of my favorite picture spots.



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Steve didn't ride his Strom up on to the picture spot because....




Turning a big, heavy bike around is a bit of work.

We rode into Cashiers and ate at Wendy's. This is not your typical Wendy's.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2020-B/i-bh5KvMg/0/e95df50b/XL/P7140166-XL.jpg

We ate outside.  It was perfect.  I think it was around 75 degrees.

[klaviator]

More riding after lunch.



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We pulled into a Jackson County park.



I normally stop here. It has shade, a real restroom and a great view.



It's a great place to solve all the world's problems ;)



We also stopped at another potential picnic area. We were scoping it out in case someone wanted to do a picnic lunch at next months ride.




This was Balsam Lake, a National Forest site.

From the first picnic area to this one Steve and Josh swapped bikes. Its always cool to get the chance to try other bikes. Steve had owned a DR650 in the past but not as nicely set up as this one. Josh had never ridden a V-Strom before.

A little later Josh and I swapped bikes. It was his first scooter ride. I had ridden a DR650 before but it was not like this one. This was a serious dual sport bike.

We swapped back after stopping here:



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[klaviator]

We continued on the BRP.



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Heat?? What heat? it was nice and cool up here!



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We came up behind a couple of Harleys. They weren't going real slow so we followed for a while. It was a good chance for me to take some pics with bikes in them.




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At some point we pulled off and Rich and I swapped bikes. His Majesty had an Airhawk Knockoff seat cushion and he had a laminar lip on his windscreen. The scooter felt very much like mine as you would expect despite different tires. I loved his seat cushion and will be getting one. I'm not sure the laminar lip made that much difference but it could be mounted farther up. I haven't decided on that yet.

I had rotated my bars forward and Rich liked that.

We rode a bit and stopped and swapped back.

[klaviator]

When we returned to the motel we found Larry and his Reflex waiting for us.



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It's always great meeting people that you have interacted with online. Just a short time in person and you will get to know them much more than online.

We talked a while then Josh headed home. It was really great having Josh along for two days of riding and socializing. I'm looking forward to seeing him again in August.

The four of us who were left went across the street to Butts on the Creek for some BBQ. We were not disappointed. Then we stayed up late BSing at the motel.

[klaviator]

The next morning would be our last in MV for this trip. We decided eat breakfast at Joey's Pancake house....purely as research for the August ride of course ;) We knew it would be busy as there had been a crowd outside the day before when we rode buy around 9. We went at 7:30 to hopefully beat the rush. It worked. When i went to the door a lady asked how many in our party and handed me a buzzer. She said it would be around 10 minutes. She lied, it was less than one.

We went in, wearing our masks until we were seated at our table. The food was great as we expected.



While we were eating we saw two employees clean a nearby table. They wiped down everything including the salt and pepper shakers and syrup bottles. They were really taking the Covid precautions seriously.



At checkout they never touched my credit card and I did everything on a touch screen which was wiped down between every customer.

When we left there were more people waiting to get in.



This place is only open for breakfast.

Returning to the motel.

[klaviator]

We hung out a while at the motel before packing up and getting on the road. We would all ride together for about 20 miles and then start splitting up as we were all going different directions. Heading up 19 we got stuck behind an extremely slow moving truck so I pulled over and got this pic.



Then we continued to the BRP where it we had a great ride. We made one last stop before splitting up.



After this stop Rich and I continued on together. We had to do some four lane and go through Robbinsville before having some great riding on 143 and the Skyway. It got downright chilly at the top but as we descended into Tellico Plains it felt like riding into an oven.   We had been spoiled with the cooler weather in and around MV.

We stopped at the Tellicafe for Lunch and then headed off down 39, 315 and 30. We did this route in reverse coming up but for some reason 315 just felt like crap. First it felt so rough I thought maybe there was something wrong with my suspension. Then at some point there where a shitload of tar snake which felt really slippery.

30 on the other had was sublime with fresh pavement and great curves. After that the riding was boring and mostly four lanes. We hit some stop and go traffic riding through Chattanooga and my temperature gauge got as high as 99 degrees ???  I was so glad I had put on my cooling vest in Tellico.

After Chattanooga Rich headed south towards Birmingham while I continued west to Huntsville.

One last pic on I-24 west of Chattanooga.



I got home around 5 with 335 miles on my odo.

[klaviator]

The Majesty worked great on this trip. Its comfortable and has plenty of power for cruising the Interstates. It just flows through the sweeping curves on roads like the skyway and BRP. It's also super nimble and handles the tighter curves great as well. It does lack passing power when stuck behind slower traffic and is a little slow coming out of tight uphill hairpins.

Gas mileage varied from 55 MPG or better on the highways to 65+ on the back roads.

The rear tire had 3500 miles on it when I left. The last two metzlers I ran on this scooter were replaced at just over 5,000 miles so I figured I had plenty of tread left for an 1100 mile ride.

This is what it looked like after I got home.




I think that running at high speed on the interstate with really hot temperatures was hard on it because it still looked OK in Maggie Valley.  Luckily I had already ordered a new one and got it mounted a few days ago.

My next big trip will be back to Maggie Valley on August 2nd to spend 4 days riding the area with about 30 other riders.  I plan on taking my smaller scooter for that trip.

[Fencejumper09]

30 Days in Maggie Valley?

That sounds like an epic trip!

Thanks for taking us along on this ride!

[klaviator]

30 Days in Maggie Valley?

That sounds like an epic trip!

Thanks for taking us along on this ride!

I wish!  That was a typo.  I'll be there for about 4 1/2 days with about 30 riders.

[Fencejumper09]

So what is your route to Maggie Valley? If I were to ride from Bham would you recommend slabbing to Chattanooga?

[klaviator]

So what is your route to Maggie Valley? If I were to ride from Bham would you recommend slabbing to Chattanooga?

59 to 24 to 75 north.  Take the 64 bypass around Cleveland and then 30 to 315 to 39 to Tellico Plains.  Skyway/143 to 28 to 74 to the BRP to 19 to Maggie Valley.

Or if you have more time you could probably do more back roads but they probably won't be as good as the roads around Maggie Valley.  You planning on heading up there this year?

[Fencejumper09]

Hopefully!

There is actually a small dual sport ride this weekend around Maggie Valley so keep an eye out for Jrou!

[klaviator]

Hopefully!

There is actually a small dual sport ride this weekend around Maggie Valley so keep an eye out for Jrou!

I won't get there until Sunday afternoon but I'll keep an eye open for Jrou.

I used to ride a lot of dual sport out of Maggie Valley but its been a few years.  I'm going to try to take my KLX up there at least once this year.

[kdtrull]

07-17 though 07-25.
What a ride!  Wish I was retired.   :(

[Sweeper]

Have an awesome trip Win! Looks like good weather this next week.


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