Damn the Corona Virus, Full Speed Ahead!

[klaviator]

My apologies to Admiral Farragut but I'm stealing his famous line and changing a few words.

While I have lead a number of rides I had never planned anything as big as this Adventure Rider Scooter get together in maggie Valley.  While other events where being cancelled left and right, there where a fairly large number of people willing to brave the pandemic to ride scooters in the North Carolina Mountains.  We even picked up a few riders because the Scooter Cannonball was cancelled so they came to Maggie Valley instead.

So here was the plan:  Meet in Maggie Valley on Sunday August 2nd, ride the next four days then head home on Friday August 7th.

On Sunday Morning I was packed and on the road by 7 AM.  That afternoon I got to the Tanglewood Motel in Maggie Valley and soon others started arriving as well.



We were soon hanging out and getting to know each other.



It was nice and cool with temps in the 70s.  I picked Maggie Valley because when most of the southeast is sweltering in 90+ degree heat, Maggie Valley is typically in the 70s or low 80's.



And more kept arriving. Some rode there and some hauled their bikes there like I did.




How many people does it take to unload a scooter?




It looked like red was the official color for this event.

[klaviator]

Dan  and Candace came all the way from Michigan.



Don came from TN with this cool looking CSC San Gabriel 250.  This was a scooter rally but any kind of bike was welcome.



Hangin out.

[klaviator]

After dinner it looked like we might get a good sunset so a bunch of us rode to Waterrock Knob. Getting ready to go.



The ride starts by taking 19 North to the BRP. The road was still wet from an earlier rain.



We rode to Waterrock Knob and enjoyed the view. There were too many clouds to really see the sunset but it was still a great view and I took a ton of pics.




There was a nice view looking east as well as west.



The view changed by the minute as the sun went down and the clouds moved around.



.

[klaviator]

There was plenty of conversation going on.



If you're wondering about why people are wearing jackets in August, it was pretty chilly up at 5000+ feet.



I was busy snapping pics.



This view only lasted a moment.



.



A full moon appeared.



Or was it Tony's Halo?



I took a few over the shoulder shots on the way back but they came out blurry. This was the least blurry.

[klaviator]

The Plan on Monday was to ride to Deal's Gap, ride the dragon and some other roads in that area. It would be a scooter invasion of Deal's Gap.

Well this is what it looked like on Monday morning.



So we hung out at the motel. It wasn't a bad way to spend the day. The Motel was well set up for us to socialize and it was a great group of people to socialize with. Most of us had met on the forum but never in person. While it was disappointing to not go riding it was still a good day.

Then the weather forecast showed a window of opportunity later in the day to go riding. Sure enough the sun came out and we got ready to go.



Lined up and ready to go.

https://photos.smugmug.com/2020-BTH/i-GkNC4n9/0/7ab55e4b/XL/P8030054-XL.jpg

An over the shoulder shot on the BRP.



No, those weren't scooters right behind me.  I had passed those bikes on the long uphill heading to the Parkway ???  I wonder what they thought about being passed by a tiny scooter?

Eventually I stopped at a turnoff to regroup.



An over the shoulder shot.



That's Rich right behind me on his Vespa GTS.



We stopped at the highest point on the BRP.



Shortly after that stop, while riding North on the BRP it started to rain. We rode the BRP to 19 and took 19 back to MV. I didn't get any more pics that day.

We were hoping for better weather on Tuesday.

[klaviator]

The weather looked good for Tuesday so we were ready to go around 9.



We split into two groups with me leading the fast group and someone also familiar with the local roads leading the slower group.

It's about 7 or 8 miles to get out of town and off the main roads and on to the first really twisty road. So I was having a good time around the curves and soon noticed there was no one in my rear view mirror. So I slowed down.........and stopped.

Oh oh!

Then Rich came riding up and told me we lost one ???

So I went back and found a Vespa down someone's driveway but no one seriously hurt.



Not a good way to start the day but the Vespa was rideable so the rider rode it back to the motel.

While we were there the second group came by so now they were ahead of us.

We continued the ride Minus two riders.

I got some pics when we stopped to regroup at intersections.



.



We soon caught the second group so I got some pics of them on the go.



The scooter in front of me was a guy on his Xmax with his wife and two dogs along for the ride!




We stopped and took a break.

[klaviator]

More twisty roads and we took another break.



This was in the back window of that car.



Then it was a short but extremely twisty ride to our next stop.



Some people took advantage of the stop to play around.



.



.



.

[klaviator]

Some just hung out, socialized and enjoyed the view.



.



I kept taking pics.

[Guidedawg]

I always love your pics and reports; you have the greatest adventures.

[klaviator]

The next leg of our ride was the "twisty" section. It was a pretty intense ride and I didn't take a single pic. We were pushing pretty hard and around half way through the road was wet from a recent shower so we slowed down.

One of the riders in the slower group shot some video. He was on a motorcycle so it sounds a bit different than a scooter would. That group was also  bunched up than my group was.

My next pic was at the lunch stop.



Social distancing at lunch.