Toughest road you've ever ridden

[pecas]

Hi Tarah,

Pretty much all of our route down was on backroads or secondary roads. Our end point was the Ironhorse near Stecoah (Close to deals gap). We left from Kingston and the first half our first day was I81 (A decent interstate as Interstate's go). The second half of that day was secondary roads to get us through Centralia (The deserted town that is sitting on a burning coal seam) and then secondary roads/backroads to near the Monongahela. That has incredible roads.. as one of my friends described it: "The Blue Ridge Parkway is a curvy road designed for RV's, the Monongahela is a curvy road designed for bikes". Real great roads! We shouldn't have tried to go all the way through, however, as we got on some gravel roads. Not a problem for the V-Strom, but not as fun as paved curvy roads.

Most of our route from then on was secondary roads and they were extremely entertaining... sometimes just the nice country feel where you waved at cows, etc and other times great turns, elevation changes, switchbacks.

First day, getting down to The Monongahela via Centralia.

http://tinyurl.com/9zvvhe

Second day, throught the Monogahela and towards Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway (we missed it last year):

http://tinyurl.com/9vwhm9

Third Day, from Mabry Mill, though the Snake, down to the Iron Horse using the bottom part of the BRP as it was closed after Mount Mitchel and we missed it last year. we had lunch at the Shady Valley general store:

http://tinyurl.com/akxpp8

Thanks again for your tip on The Snake! We will likely do more of it next year as this year was more of a case of "let's see if it actually worth going to and as good as we heard".

I wouldn't be surprised if I head down there again some time this year if I can get away for a bit.

On the way back we went to Huntsville to see the rocket park, stopped at the Jack Daniels Distillery and then a lot of secondary roads mixed with interstates. There were great roads in every state we road in down there!

..Tom

Wow! That sounds like a great trip! I'm heading down that way in August...thanks for the info!

[wiggels]

is that the road that has the sign that says "welcome to the road to no where broken promises 1945-? me and some buddys were just down at deals and stumbled on the road to nowhere WHAT A GREAT ROAD flying up and down it great concrete road real smooth but the brigde

Well just like in your fatherland, if I told you I would have to kill you

All I will say is it is in the Smokies, not far from the GAP.