2015-08-28 Fatboy and Lazeebum Go To Tellico

[kdtrull]

I've been lucky this summer to have been able to ride so much....put 5000 miles on the XT in just 2 months and I don't recall how many more on the DR before then.

Back toward the end of August, Randy had the itch to go to Tellico Plains to camp and ride.  He asked if I wanted to go to.  I'd been itchin' a good bit too so we locked in the weekend and started getting ready.
My wife's aunt has a house and an unused cabin just a few miles outside of Tellico so I asked Randy if he would mind staying in a FREE, air conditioned, fully furnished, hot water/shower cabin up in the mountains.
After some careful consideration he replied back....."OK".
I'm still not sure if he was disappointed about camping but it sure meant a lot less crap to have to tote 300 miles.



I'll explain where the KTM came from later.
The cabin is about 15 miles south of Tellico and about half way up the mountain.  The owners house is on top of the mountain and has a fantastical view.





You can't tell it but the Cherohala Skyway is just over the next mountain.



We meticulously studied maps and plotted out the fastest, most direct route possible to get to Tellico Plains.  The previous statement is total BS.  We had no plan except to stay off the highway as much as possible.
Our route ended up looking like this:



I don't know that we ever went through any large town.
We dodged Fayetteville:



We dodged Shelbyville:



Went straight through downtown Wartrace....which is a cool town just south of Bell Buckle.  If you ever get up that way, it's worth the drive through.  They just happened to be having some kind of festival the day we went through:







From the Wikipedias:
The name "Wartrace" is rooted in a Native American trail that once passed through the area. The town, initially known as "Wartrace Depot," was established in the early 1850s as a stop on the newly constructed Nashville and
Chattanooga Railroad.  During the Civil War, the town was the winter headquarters of Confederate General William J. Hardee during the aftermath of the Battle of Stones River, and the Old Chockley Tavern in Wartrace was a
gathering place for Confederate officers during the Tullahoma Campaign. With the increase in rail travel in the late 19th century, Wartrace experienced a boom period.
At its height, the town had six inns and hotels, and serviced 13 trains per day.

Skirted through the edge of McMinnville which was OK for a fuel stop:



Got into some more funner roads around Spencer:



Skirted Pikeville and had a fun ride up 30 past the quarry:



Then finally had to go through Dayton and some flat, boring stuff to get over to 68.



By the time we got to Tellico, we had worked out a detailed plan....Fuel, food, cabin, sleep.
At the fuel stop, we had our first improbably and entirely coincidental meeting with some riders from Ohio.  Within 5 minutes of chatting, we realized that one of the 3 was a feller named Brad Shull who knows and works for the
same company as our own moto, photo, and pie expert Glenn Harshman.  What are the odds, I thought.  Brad, and his riding buddies were cool fellers and ended up having dinner with us at the BBQ joint across 68 from the BP station.

Brad asked, "How's Glenn liking the XR400?"  I laughed and said, "It's been a couple weeks since you've talked to him, huh?"  ;D

[LRobinson]

I've been lucky this summer to have been able to ride so much....put 5000 miles on the XT in just 2 months and I don't recall how many more on the DR before then.

MONEY


My wife's aunt has a house and an unused cabin just a few miles outside of Tellico so I asked Randy if he would mind staying in a FREE, air conditioned, fully furnished, hot water/shower cabin up in the mountains.
After some careful consideration he replied back....."OK".

DOUBLE MONEY

Brad asked, "How's Glenn liking the XR400?"  I laughed and said, "It's been a couple weeks since you've talked to him, huh?"  ;D

PRICELSS

[kdtrull]

Saturday morning we went back into Tellico Plains, presumably, to meet Brad's other buddies at Hardees.  They had indicated, Friday night, that they were interested in riding with us Saturday.  Brad had to head out Saturday
in order to make his granny's 93rd birthday.  That dude is tough.  He drove in from Ohio overnight Thursday (after working), unloaded/set up camp early Friday morning and rode with his pals all day, couldn't have gotten back to camp/bed before
ten, and was gonna' pack up and drive back to Ohio for the b'day party Saturday.  I, MAYBE, could have done that about a hunnerd' years (and pounds) ago.
Anyway, we managed to get to Hardees on time but the other guys never showed.  They had been riding some pretty hard-core stuff Friday.  I figure they got back to camp and considered that our only real plan was to ride out
Parsons Branch then wing it the rest of the day, and figured they could find more intense riding fun by following the head of the campground directions.  Don't remember his name...you folks that have stayed there before
probably know him and his ride advisor skills.  Pretty sure Randy knows him...I do not.

So, we ate, left out for Cades Cove and started Saturday's adventure.  There was another (actually two) highly improbable, coincidental meetings in the works...we just didn't know it yet.

Got to Cades Cove jsut after bicycle time and the traffic was already irritating.  Parsons Branch is a one-way road out of the back side of Cades Cove so, if you want to ride it, you gotta' work your way through roughly
one-half of the 11 mile loop at miserably slow speeds.

Parsons Branch road is a well groomed gravel road, normally, and we hit it at the peak of normal....low water and no wash-outs.  It was very dry and dusty...the greenage was very thick and the visibility is limited.
Don't get me wrong...it's a pretty ride but don't expect any grand vistas....it follows the valley and has just some twisty gravel and a few areas to push out and have a little fun.



We came upon a Harley on the road.  It was in a trailer being towed.  In the condition the road was in at this time, I suspect that the tow driver would have had more fun just riding the Harley down the gravel road.

There was almost no water in the streams but, at least, the road wasn't closed to wash-outs again.

[kdtrull]

The intersection of Parsons Branch and 129 is a cool place to take a break and watch all the riders come by.  We did that for about 30 minutes then set out on 129 to speed up (a little) and cool down:

[klaviator]

Great report.  Great pics and video.  That area has all kinds of fun riding both paved and unpaved.  I hope to make it back there one or two times before the end of the year.

[kdtrull]

Just gonna' back up a little to the intersection of Parsons Branch and 129.  It's a neat place to take a break and watch the other riders go by.  The only thing is it makes it a little dangerous for some of them because it's right in the middle of a curve and some of the riders tend to want to look at you as they drift across their lane.  On the plus side, the girls on the back all want to smile and wave  :D  (at Randy of course....nobody wants to wave at a 260 lbs. man on a girl's bike :'()
The guys a 1:30 were lettin' 'er rip!!!

[kdtrull]

Just for the sake of self indulgence, I'll include the Killboy shots.



Hey Killboy, check out this awesome drain plug:



I like this shot because I was on some brand new D606s and you can actually see through the knobs on the front tire to the pavement on the other side....not bad road traction for a knobby tire.







Later Saturday, we were still in full wing-it mode...taking any squiggly line that popped up on the gpsmap:



I've noticed over the years my yellow Fieldsheer jacket attracts all kinds of bees for some reason...it has to be the color but I don't know for sure.  At this stop, there were many very large bees swarming my jacket
and landing on my neck and head so I snapped a pic, took care of some other business, and got back on the bike as soon as possible.




One of the many great roads in the area that has plenty of curves and NO traffic is Rhymers Ferry.  It will dump you out in Fontanna Village.















We snaked our way through Fontanna Village and took a little food break at the Pitstop zippy-mart. 




That is where our day got a little more interesting when we had another highly improbably and entirely coincidental meeting with a pretty interesting fellow on a KTM 690.
He came in while Randy and I were chowin' down on some zippy-mart hot dogs.  He came in, sat down next to Randy, ordered a drink and started talking.
He had an accent I didn't recognize although I was suspecting somewhere middle-eastern....my first leaning was Egypt.  Not quite.
His name is Eilon Paz, an Israeli immigrant living in New York.
He explained that he lived in Brooklyn New York and was just a few days into his Trans-Am trail ride.  He had 2 weeks total to make it to Colorado where he was gonna' leave his bike at a friend of a friend's house
and come back at a later time to finish the trip.  On the day we met him, he was planning to ride the Tellico area and make it to Nashville for the night. 
I thought, "there's no freakin' way this late in the day" and I was correct.



We told him we were just kind of wandering and had no real routes or plans.  He was following the GPS Kevin version of the TAT and asked if we wanted to follow along for a while doing a little random exploring as the impulses
occured.  I heard "random" and "exploring", did the non-verbal eye check with Randy, and said "Let's go!".

We all rode together the whole rest of the day.



Taking side-track after side-track:

[kdtrull]

We rode several more pretty easy gravel roads, actually backtracked on some of the out of the way paved roads we'd found earlier and made our way back into Tellico Plains, tired and hungry.









This stop was where we found a gated road of the FS road and were debating on whether or not to risk getting caught riding it.  I'm glad we chose not to.  It looked like a great road but not worth a trip to the impound lot.



Back in Tellico Plains, we made one last fuel stop for the day and met, yet another, very unlikely fellow on a brand new Weestrom....sharp looking bike.
He was probably in his 60s or so and had been very badly burned in a house fire when he was a kid....over 80% of his body was wrecked by the fire.
Most of his fingers were burned back to the first and second knuckle....face, arms missing muscles and covered with countless skin grafts. 
I was immensely impressed with his ability to overcome such tremendous adversity but I could not bring myself to ask for a photo.
It was absolutely amazing to me that he even still had the drive to ride and do all of the things he said he'd done.
He had ridden the TAT twice....been all over the country...camping, riding, living off the bike.  Truly and iron-man with an iron will.
He took off to meet some friends at the Tellico Senior Center.  We headed towards the Tellico Cafe.


The cafe is where we had the chance to find out more about our new Israeli friend.  He is a freelance photographer and author.  He left his family and friends seven years ago to come to America for a permanent grand adventure.

We discovered that the reason he had to be back in NY after two weeks on the TAT was to
close on a book publishing deal.  It's called Dust and Grooves.



He's also been documenting his TAT adventure on tumbler.  Check it out.

http://tatonfilm.tumblr.com/

By the end of dinner at the cafe, he'd given up on making Nashville for the day (me thinking "no sh1t") and was asking about places to camp and where we were staying and such.
I had been considering, but was still very apprehensive about the prospect bringing someone we just met back to the cabin...that was not mine.  I finally went with my gut and told him he could stay with us.

The cabin doesn't look it in the picture but is quite large. 

Anyway, that is how the KTM ended up in our cabin shot.



You can check out more of Eilon's world adventures here:
http://eilonpaz.com/portfolio-page/travel-candombe-uruguay/candombe-uruguay/



Maybe it happens all the time and I just don't get out around people that much.....but we sure met a lot of unlikely folks in 2 short days. 

What are the odds?

[lazeebum]

It was a great weekend to ride.  I have said it before and will say it again.  Kenneth is a freaking genius when it comes to using a GPS.
   The only thing that I had planned on doing was riding Parsons Branch Road, after that we could just "wing it".  With Kenneth operating that little black box on his handlebar, we had a fun weekend.  We met some interesting people and had a great weekend of riding.
     Thanks for being a great ride leader Kenneth.

[griff]

Looks like a great time to me. I've always really like the Tellico Plains area.

[klaviator]

Maybe it happens all the time and I just don't get out around people that much.....but we sure met a lot of unlikely folks in 2 short days. 

What are the odds?

I won't say it happens all the time but I have met many really interesting folks while out on the bike.  It seems to happen most often when by myself or perhaps with one other rider.  When with a large group it seldom happens.  At least that's my experience. 

Glad to see you had such a great trip.  Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Argh Oh]

Wow, great report and pics! I've been lucky enough to have gone to that area twice in the last couple months. Thanks for sharing!

[KevinB]

Awesome report Kenny.  Someday I hope to be able to make one of there trips with you.

[Nice Goat]

That's some awesome reporting and pics!

[Jwwr]

Excellent report! Thanks for pointing out Rhymers Ferry! I'm going to be staying at Fontana Village in November and now I have a new Road to ride!