Third annual Maggie Valley "Beat the Heat" Scooter Gathering

[klaviator]

A couple of years ago I thought it would be fun to get together with some of the scooter enthusiasts that I had come to "know" online and  ride the great roads in the North Carolina mountains.  I also noticed that the weather in Maggie Valley was always a lot cooler than almost anyplace else with highs from the low 70s to low 80s in July and August.  So I set up an event and I think we had 11 people show up.  It was so much fun that I did it again the next year.  Despite COVID we had around 30 show up this time.  This year was the third year for this event and it turned out to be a fantastic time with a total of 29 people participating.  Only three of those 29 were from Alabama but I am hoping to change that in the future.

[klaviator]

The event went from Sunday through Friday with Sunday and Friday mostly being travel days.  One guy really wanted to come but couldn't get out of work.  He still wanted to meet us so he rode over 300 miles to Maggie Valley on Sunday.  He hung out for a while and then did a short ride with us before heading mack home.  He ended up riding 712 miles that day!!

This guy was riding a Honda Silverwing which was the largest scooter at the event.



A few more pics from Sunday.



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[klaviator]

On Monday we rode to Deal's Gap.  Some of us rode the dragon and some didn't.  One of the roads we did getting to Deal's Gap had tighter curves and were more challenging than the dragon itself. 

Here's some Pics.



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[klaviator]

For Tuesday's ride we would do my favorite route which went North and East from MV.  This would be  a day of nearly non stop curves on roads with little or no traffic. 

Some pics from Tuesday.



For this ride we split into a "fast" and a "slow" group.  Both groups did the same stops so we had everyone together then.



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[klaviator]

Wednesday we headed south for some more twisty roads.  This ride was mostly at higher elevations so I wore a textile jacket instead of the mesh jacket I had worn the first two days. 



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[klaviator]

Thursday was or last day of riding.  We all headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  After several miles on the Parkway we stopped and I swapped bikes with someone.

I got to ride this CSC San Gabriel 250 and Don got to ride my scooter.



After a few miles we swapped back.  Our next stop was the highest point on the BRP and we took a bunch of pics.



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After that we split up.  A couple of riders headed for Mt Mitchell, some took a fairly short route back to Maggie Valley and some went with me to ride more twisty roads!



We rode some twisty roads and then had a late lunch.  Rain was building up on our intended rout so we returned to Maggie Valley.  A couple of us rode up the the local ski area.



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