2004 Classic Yamaha Rally in Suches, GA

[heckertb]

Re: Pictures

Originally posted by Hobbit
I just posted my pictures from this weekend. Enjoy!

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?i...MC-AlbumInvite

Where did you get this link from imagestation in order to post it here? All I could find was how to send individual invites.

Made it home no problem except a hairy time going around columbus ohio at night in the rain, not fun. Had a great time, looking forward to next year!

Bruce Heckert

[heckertb]

I'm new to this, I think this is it:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2828985093&code=12537771&mode=invite&cmp=EMC-AlbumInvite

[Hepcat]

My brother went to that, but when he got there, the employees at the store he went to told him that there had been a mistake and the rally was the next (this) weekend.

[sixtysix]

Got in late last night.....ride reports will be coming soon. If you guys want to stay upstairs you need to hurry and reserve a room. Rob and family took one room and me and Bruce got one of the others, the trailer is gone too. We need one more person for our room and that leaves the 4 person room open right now. No money down so call and save it!

[Ralph Meeks]

Hi Gary, welcome back. Wanted to stay and ride a couple days with you two but a little job poped up at the last minute that had to be done by Wednesday . Hope you two had a good week.

There should not be a room left upstairs. Rob has #1, I have #3, and you should have #2. This room stuff is still confusing. I hope the folks at TWO are not confused.

looking forward to the trip report

Ralph Meeks

[MartyA]

Gary - photos?

[sixtysix]

Marty, I have not uploaded them yet, probably this weekend with the ride report.

[sixtysix]

My pictures are not too good this year, It's hard to take them when you are leading a ride! Here's what I got...we got some from Deal's gap on Killboy.com, but I don't have the copies yet.

Gary's Pictures

[mitch]

Nice pictures

Especially the ones with the black tees on Marty !! Gary you worry me first i see you holding up black bottles ( beer im sure ) then your taking pics at 60 mph in the middle of a turn. As they said on NYPD Blue, Lets be careful out there . LOL Ill see you this summer in your home state . ...............MITCH

[sixtysix]

Re: Nice pictures

Originally posted by mitch
snip Gary you worry me first i see you holding up black bottles ( beer im sure ) then your taking pics at 60 mph in the middle of a turn. . ...............MITCH

Not at the same time!!

[Huron52]

What day and what cat do I look under to find pictures of you guys?. (killboy.com)

thanks

[sixtysix]

The october 17 one under sportbike.

[MartyA]

at least you guys are on the right side of the road!! Bruce, how big is that grin?

[gerkenbruce]

Marty,
Ear to ear !!!! ALL week long !!!!

[sixtysix]

I finally finished the ride write up!

I posted this on Rob's forum too, so you only need to read it once.

The "Lost Dog Tour 2004"

Once again this year (October, 2004) Bruce and I attended the 'Classic Japanese Motorcycle Rally' at TWO in Suches, GA. We finally decided to leave on Thursday evening so we could actually get there during the daylight hours and do some riding on Friday. Imaging the surprise when after driving for 17 hours straight south we arrived to find the temperature was 41 degrees F. It was warmer in NY, but we were in GA. We found out we were too early to check in and spent sometime unloading the bikes and planned a quick ride to get us used to the twisties again.

Bruce had left his XS11 home for the first time, and brought a new pony to ride "The Big Kat" a 1990 Suzuki Katana 1100. I was also on a new bike, my 2003 Aprilia Tuono, so we needed a little time to adjust to the new bikes and twisty roads again.

We are calling this the lost dog tour because for some reason we saw dozens of dogs! In the road, on the road, beside the road. We had to swerve to miss a few of them!

Many XS11 forum members were in attendance (you know who you are, so I won't mention everybody here), and this rally is always like a XS Southeast Rally¡Kjust don't tell Rob!!

The weather did turn nicer and we had a couple of ride groups set to go out on Saturday. Much to my surprise I was leading the first group of 14 bikes. I had to lead the ride from my GPS, we took a few wrong turns but the ride was great. One of the riders had a tire going down and found a nice big screw in it, I whipped out the tire plug kit and fixed him up (I was very experienced with this kit from NB, and didn't even need to read the directions.) Once we got back to TWO, Rob (he had lots of time since he forgot to bring a bike!!) had a wonderful BBQ waiting for us. We had a few beers and BS'ed into the night.

Next day Bruce led a much smaller group to ride the Cherohala Skyway and Deal's Gap. Brent showed up just as we were about to leave and brought mittens for everybody, this rally would not be the same without Brent there, so I am glad he braved the cool weather and joined us for a ride. You would have thought that Bruce and I showed up at Deal¡¦s Gap on space shuttles since we had a non-stop line of people asking about our bikes. Mine was a new model that people didn¡¦t know a lot about and Bruce's was a very nice example of an early sport bike that people never see any more. We pulled up next to a new FJR1300 and Bruce was all over it asking the owner about it. The guy threw the keys to Bruce and told him to take it for a spin. Bruce looked at me and then at him and said 'OK'. As Bruce took off the guy looked at me and asked, 'He will come back right?' I told him that I trusted him with my bike and that seemed good enough.

Anyway, Bruce and I were the only ones to do Deal's Gap but we ended up riding back in the rain because of it. We tried to make it back before the rain and I took a shortcut on Rt 123 (pretty straight) and was lucky enough to end up behind a hillbilly in a white Ford Pick-up, gun rack and all! We ran at 85mph behind the truck for 15 miles or so ....thanks for the escort. When we got back we found out that much to our dismay we were out of beer and drove south to Dahlonega¡Kthis is when we heard some bad sounds coming from the front wheel bearing on the truck. Hmmm .I will have to have that looked at before we get back home. Then some really devastating news hit us hard, they don't sell beer on Sunday in GA. Something really funny happened on this trip (other than the beer, which was not funny) we saw a car blow by us heading north and then when we got to the rock pile, I stopped to see what towns were closest and the car pulls up besides us and a very cute gal asks us if we know how to get to 400. Then before I answer, she asks if we know which way we are going, and then asks if we know where we are. (These people were really lost I guess) I told her that we are heading south and that 9 miles ahead is a town and somebody there should know how to get to 400. They were headed for Atlanta, it is going to be a long night for those two.

Monday morning brought more rain and so we packed up for the ride to Cherokee. Only 4 of us remained, the 2 guys from Florida and Bruce and I. Once we got to Cherokee and got in our room and settled, the rain stopped and the roads dried, and we rode one of my favorite routes in this area, Rt28 to Franklin and then up Wayah road, then we turned around and did it all over again in the opposite direction. THIS ROUTE ROCKS! There were a couple of areas that got washed out in the flooding from the hurricanes, and this would not be the last time that the flooding caused us some problems.

Anyway we woke up Tuesday to find non stop rain. So we went down to the Bob's Big Boy (our usually breakfast spot) and then did some shopping and I found a Dodge dealer in Sylva (15 miles away) that was willing to look at my truck on Wednesday morning to fix the wheel bearing. We had a great day of non riding (is this even possible?)

I wanted to drive over to Sylva and find where the dealer was so we would not have to do this on a better riding day. We found the dealer and then checked out the downtown since we were there. We found a cool music shop that had some great CD's and lots of cool stuff. We were walking back to the truck and I noticed a poster in a window that said 'blah blah blah BEER', OK all noticed was 'BEER', anyway we looked inside and discovered a micro brewery. We had a nice long talk with Dieter Kuhn, the brew master, and tasted all of his fine hand crafted beers. The two dark beers were awesome and we ended up buying a couple of growlers full to take back to Cherokee. He told us that they would fill up the growlers for $6.00 anytime we came back (a growler is a German beer stein that holds 4oz short of a six pack). Any locals would be doing themselves a favor if the checked out Heinzelmannchen Brewery in Sylva, NC. The samples are free and the beer is some of the best I have ever tasted.

Later it actually cleared up and we rode back to Franklin to check out a BBQ joint that I heard about in one of the motorcycle mags. Fat Buddy¡¦s BBQ is awesome and we got the feast for 2 that included more food than the two of us could eat for $27.00. We passed on the 'I sucked bones at Fat Buddy's" T-shirts though. We had to ride the twisties back in the dark though. Different kind of rhythm in the dark, not bad, just different.

Wednesday brought nice weather and a trip to Sylva to drop off the truck. We tried a local diner and got some good biscuits and gravy, plus the waitress was better looking than any of the ones at the Big Boy!. I had to ride b**ch on Bruce's bike back home, there are no pictures of this and I will deny it ever happened if asked.

We planned a short day of riding (due to the truck thing) and had about 250 miles on the docket. We had ignored the Smokey Mountain National Park on our two previous visits and figured we should check it out. Traffic was horrendous and we will probably not do this again. I must say that the fall colors were at peak in 90% of the areas we visited and this was the most awesome display of color ever. We drove down into Cades Cove, but did not do the whole loop due to the traffic. We hopped on the foothills parkway (very nice!) and then zipped right into Deal's Gap for more super twisties. The traffic on weekdays is light and we did 3 runs, we had a blast.

We did a little exploring on the way back and ended up on a dirt road, (a seriously twisty dirt road) but getting there was fun too! To bad we had to ride a very twisty section of 28 over and over!!

Once we got back to Cherokee another surprise was waiting, the owner Mark had his new Triumph Rocket III (2300cc) all warmed up and wanted us to take here for a spin..HOLY CRAP..this bike is amazing, it rips tour arms right out of their sockets! This is the strongest bike I have even been on. I think Triumph did a great job on this bike. Bruce liked it as well .

Thursday was going to be our big day, we had a 400 mile route planned. We ended up doing 400 miles but almost nothing went according to plan. We got up before the sun and took our daily ride to Bob's Big Boy and then we were off on the Blue Ridge parkway. It was cool and wet in spots and we found some fog as well. We carefully looked at maps and planned an awesome route, too bad it was bigger than the GPS maps I had downloaded. We would have to just explore the old fashioned way, I guess.

Then the first closed road we saw was 151. This is my favorite piece of road in NC so I was plenty bummed. We knew two sections of the BRP were closed so we scooted off on the other side of Asheville, we took Bulls Gap road down to Weaverville, we were looking for 197. 197 was recommended to me by somebody on the Bandit list so I was determined to try it, two maps I had showed it as having a dirt section in the middle, the other showed it as all paved. Anyway the south end of it sucked, kind of straight, then we saw a sign 'Road surfaces changes-Narrow bridges- twisty mountain roads ahead - trucks not recommended. We were in for some MX riding I guess. (we did see an 18 wheeler with some distraught looking people around, can't go forward, can't turn around, it may still be there!!) We saw a huge pack of hunting dogs circling around on the first bridge we came to-they were checking us out I guess. Anyway the road was gravel, but hard packed and only a little washboard, I hope they pave it someday. The ride was nice anyway, great fall colors and quiet woods (except for the 20 odd hunters waiting for the dogs to flush something out). Then the surface changed back to asphalt and the road got really fun switchback after switchback after switchback! Too bad we were going downhill since this road would be even more fun uphill. This section of 197 was a winner for sure!

We actually continued along 197 for a long time, there was a real mix of sweepers, rough road, recently washed out road, and brand new pavement, hairpin turns right after bridges, etc. etc. This was fun, but it was hard to get a rhythm going. We got our first look at some real flood damage as we rode along the river. I am going to give them a couple of years to get the flood damage fixed and come back and try this road again.

The road changed from 197 to 395 at the TN border, we took it straight into Erwin. We stopped at the main road and pulled off to survey where we might find some lunch. We were approached by a gentleman who proceeded to tell us about every diner in the county. He told us that Clarence's Drive In was the best around and only 6 miles away in Unicoi, TN. The special was stuffed pork chops (I got mine with baked apples!) Bruce and I just ordered when it started to pour, we had to run out and grab our bags off the bikes.

Luckily the rain was only 'locally heavy' and we eventually rode out of it. Next we wanted to ride over to Hot Springs, so we jumped on the highway and headed south, we missed the exit we wanted and got off at Mars Hill, then had to take 25/70 to Hot Springs. They had just repaved this road and it had mile after mile of great, fast sweepers. (Lucky we missed that exit, huh?) In Hot Springs we hit 209 (another favorite) that winds merrily through the Pisgah National Forest. This road features a 2 mile straight stretch with 15 MPH corners at either end, this year they were fixing the bridge right in the middle so we had to keep the terminal velocity down.

This road takes us down to Canton where we were going to catch 276 (remember the camp from two years ago?) then up to the BRP and back to Cherokee. We stopped to get gas near Caruso and I asked Bruce if we should head back from here (up HWY19 or 23 and call it quits since it was almost dark, about 20 min ride) Bruce says 'Well we should finish the ride..', I should have known we were in trouble. We made our way up to the BRP and saw heavy fog, we figured we could drive out of it. This fog was so heavy you could just barely make out the yellow line under the bike! I was following Bruce and he would only be a few feet ahead but his tail light would disappear. It feels very lonely when you only have the yellow line to look at and nothing but white everywhere else.

We rode on the Parkway till the next exit at 215, I figured we could just go north and get home a little late, no big deal. Yeah right! 215 North was closed, 215 South took us hours out of the way....Oh well 215 South it was. The road was nice a twisty but since it was dark, foggy and wet; a lot of the joy was gone. We tried to cut up on 281 N, hoping it would at least cut some distance off put it was closed too! So we took Highway 64 all the way to Cashiers, at least there were lots of wrecks and stuff to look at. We stopped to get some dinner at about 9pm, we found a great place to eat called "The Barn" we were the only ones in there, it was kind of weird place that sold clocks and food. The rib specials we ordered were fantastic, and not over priced, I am looking forward to coming back here again.

When we left they asked us where we were headed. I told them "Up 107 to Sylva then on to Cherokee". More good news! They told us 107 was also closed, half the road fell into the river. He told us the detour was plenty tricky and twisty (mental note to check this out sometime), but he knew another way. He told us the road was passable but only one lane and a large section of dirt. During the day the Sheriff makes people turn around but he thought we might be able to get through at night. What the heck, nothing else was going right, we figured at least a jail cell would be warm, so we chanced the closed road. It was a maze of heavy equipment, dirt and rock piles, port-a-johns, and warning signs, but we made it. What a night, we got home at 11:30pm.

Friday we had to pick up the truck (I still won't admit I rode b**ch on Bruce's bike) and blew half the day doing that. (We also got our Growlers filled with homemade beer again!) We ended up going back and doing some of the twisties we did in the dark the night before Rt. 215 and then north on 276. It was a nice way to end the trip.

Saturday was pack up and leave day, we got out early and made great time I was home at midnight. I am already planning routes and thinking about next year....I can't wait. See you there!!