Ride Report - Smoky Mountains | GTAMotorcycle.com

Ride Report - Smoky Mountains

shanekingsley

Curry - so nice it burns you twice
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Ride Report:

My trip got cut short because a weather front came through and significantly dropped the temperatures and brought with it a bunch of rain and snow. I ended up spending two days riding down, 2 days riding around the Smokies and then 2 days riding home. I tried to ride every road suggested and did almost that. I also did endless scouring the net for other peoples recommendations on the best roads to and from and I managed to put together a pretty good route. I was also able to plot my entire route in Google Maps and then transfer those routes to my Garmin Nuvi 550 and it worked pretty well with only a few glitches here and there. There;s some pretty good threads over on ADV on how to do it if you are interested.

I went down through the Smokies a few years ago but was just passing through, so I didn't get to really ride on many different roads. This time, the trip was all about packing as many twisty roads in one trip as possible. This was a tall task to do in such a short time - it meant that basically each day I was riding from sunrise to sunset with only a 20minute break for lunch in the middle of the day. This was fine for me, because I usually prefer to ride in 4 hour blocks anyways, so I was trying to time my breaks for whenever I needed to fill up. Most days I ended up on the bike for 10 hours or a little bit more. If this was during the summer, it would have been so much better with the extra daylight.

Day 1:
I rode down with another rider (on a VFR) and we rode slab the whole way down to Tazewell, Virginia. We left Ontario late, and took a bit too long getting down there, so we had to ride VA#16 "The Back of the Dragon" while it was getting dark. By the time we arrived at Hungry Mother State Park, it was completely dark out, we were a bit disoriented and we couldn't figure out where the office was or how to go about selecting a camp site. We rode around the area and saw a really nice looking site and decided to set up our tents on it. There were many sites available. After our tents were set up and we were just eating our dinner and so forth, a bunch of pick-up trucks pulling trailers come into the camping area - a group of Boy Scouts from North Carolina. They go about setting up their tents and it turns out we had taken one of their allocated camp sites. They had reserved 8 sites but only arrived around 9pm, which is why it looked so empty there when we arrived at 8:30. They call the parks people who said we had to get out and that the park was totally full and we would have to stay elsewhere. I said we would be happy to and that we only set up there because it was dark out and we were disoriented. I asked them if they knew a place we could go that was nearby, because from a safety standpoint we didn't want to be riding for long at night on twisty roads, when all of a sudden one of the Boy Scouts leaders says not to worry about it, they will let us stay where we are as long as we just give him $20 for it (even though it cost them $25/site). That was very nice of him and they just crammed the kids in a little tighter for that night, knowing that we would be gone in the morning and they would have the use of the space. It was a really nice park, with awesome campsites, clean facilities and electrical outlets in the bathrooms. I also liked that they had wood decks as tent platforms because the area was so hilly. It was nice to sleep on a perfectly level surface and way more that I had hoped for. I had brought my stove and food for meals, but it turned out that my fuel bottle lid had broken and I can't get it off the bottle. So I had a bottle full of fuel, a perfectly good stove and all this food, but no way to cook any of it. It was a good thing I still had 1/2 a sub from lunch at Subway... a sign of many more meals to come.

The campsite at Hungry Mother State Park:
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Day 2 Route
We woke up the next day and set off shortly after sunrise. I'm an early riser and was up by 6am and had my tent and all gear totally packed and ready to go before light, but for some reason we still left late. From here on out, we were going to avoid any more slab - only backroads and twisties. There was a decent amount of fog in the morning - I like riding in the fog.
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We rode this route together and he was going to turn around and make his way home because he didn't have time off work. I was going to continue to the Iron Horse Motorcycle Lodge in the Smokies and he would leave around lunch time. We rode together until Little Switzerland aka NC226a (or "The Diamond Back"). This route leaving Hungry Mother and over to Little Switzerland was really nice and was getting better with each road we took. The NC226a took me by surprise and I really liked it. It was an amazing piece of road. There were lots of twists and turns and beautiful scenery all of the place.
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We split and then I headed up the Hwy 80 "The Devils Whip". I had forgotten I put this road in my route and it was more mountain climbing twisty awesomeness. From here I snaked my way over to the Iron Horse Lodge. I was supposed to ride the NC 197, but my GPS was acting up and so I ended up missing it entirely. It's a shame, because I had read that there is a twisty 5 mile gravel ascent up a mountain which I really wanted to ride in addition to the other 60 miles of paved fun.

The Iron Horse Lodge was a really great place to set up for the time there. Camping was only $15/night. The staff were really nice and the tent sites were perfect - set up along a nice creek which was nice to listen to each night falling asleep. On the Saturday night, there was a BMW thing going on there, so it was pretty full, but by Sunday night the place was almost a ghost town with only a handful of riders.
The camp sites:
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Covered parking for the bikes which is nice in the mornings to get on a bike that is not soaked with dew. Once the BMW's left - it was all big touring bikes, all the time. They all seemed to like the V-Strom.
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Day 3 - Route
I ditched all my heavy gear and now only took with me a mostly empty top box and a map bag. This way I was able to test out my new Anakee 3's a little better than being loaded down with all my gear. Suffice to say, they are awesome tires. The best of my day 3 roads were Moonshiner #28, Cherohala Skyway, US129, River Road, GA #60/180 and Wayah Rd.

A view from #28:
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After riding on thousands of miles of twisty roads, I can still say that the Cherohala Skyway remains my all time favourite. The endless curves mixed in with so much amazing scenery keep it at the top of my list. If the Blue Ridge Parkway had a 55mph speed limit on it, then the southern section of it would come in a close second. A view from the Cherohala - the mass of white in the picture is clouds and I wasn't quite finished my ascent on this particular stretch.
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I took River Road which runs south off the Cherohala Skyway, very close to Telico Plains. It will take you past Bald River Falls which is quite nice. By accident, I also took the North River road, which is easy twisty gravel loop. The only thing was that my tires were inflated pretty high to compensate for all my gear and I didn't bother to let some pressure out of them, so had to take it a bit easy. You can link it with a few other roads and get yourself down to Murphy, which was a route recommended to me by a member here. Thanks! it was really awesome and I'm very glad to have taken it.

A view of the river along River Road:
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A view of Bald River Falls:
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A nice spot along the North River Road:
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Getting high up on another stretch of twisty dirt road. I think I missed peak fall colours by about a week:
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Day 4 Route
The next morning I woke up well before light and was even ready to go before the sun rose. Almost all the other tents were gone and it really felt like a ghost town there.
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I had a long day planned - well over 10hrs of riding time and that doesn't include the time I spend getting lost and backtracking each day. I headed out and made my way back over to Wayah Rd. This time I was going to check out a road that intersects with it called Otter Creek Rd, which invariably leads to Telico Rd. On a map they looked pretty awesome. Once I was on this stretch, it had no idea just how awesome. This was undoubtedly on the of the highlights of my trip. First of all, it was a gravel/dirt/mud ascent and descent along a very quiet area. I did not see anyone the whole time I was on it and it also made me aware of the need to be careful - it would have been easy to go over the edge and no one find me or me be unable to call for help due to no cell signals in this area. I crested up this beautiful and very technical dirt road to where the hydro lines sit at the top of this mountain. The view was unreal and from this pic below, I was nowhere near the top of this particular climb.
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One particular road I liked a lot was Ellijay road which turns into Tilley Creek Rd. It had pretty well zero traffic on it and was a perfect mix of technical stuff and scenic stuff. I then headed down the NC107 into South Carolina which was also quite nice, but the further south it went, the less technical it became. On the way back, it was nice to be able to see the Smokies off in the distance and know that this is where I was going to be within an hour two. This is a view of the cockpit and the Smoky Mountains off in the distance as seen from South Carolina.
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An amazing route that I went on included riding up NC281, then south along NC215, then up NC276 and then south again along the NC215 until meeting up with the Blue Ridge Parkway. I didn't read much about the NC281, and I'm not sure why. It's amazing! At one point I thought, when are these curves going to end? I need a break! And then I thought I'm crazy for thinking such a thing and just kept riding. Very fast mountain road it was, with the ability to get into a really nice rhythm. The 215 south was a piece of engineering awesomeness - it was so smooth and tons of turns. The ride the 276 from Brevard was also nice, but it is slightly grooved pavement, which makes for a more bumpy ride and a shakier video.

Again, because I was so tight on time, I decided against stopping to take photo's at every opportunity. But speaking of video, I did bring my GoPro camera and took hours of videos and photo's while out riding. However, I forgot the little white rubber thingy that prevent the video from being shaky (poor design) and I did have a chest mount which I conveniently left back at Iron Horse. So I have lots of video that is pretty much much intolerable to watch. I mount my GoPro on a radar shelf and this way I can face it forward or backward. I took the Lee Parks Total Control classes and thought it a good idea to film myself, so I can critique my form in the corners. However when I face the camera towards me, the wind noise becomes unbearable to listen to, in addition to the bumpiness. All around fail on my part, but at least I have some video to critique myself with. I guess it means now I have to go back to take some better video.

By the end of the day, I made it back to Iron Horse just as dark was setting in. I must have rode about 500 miles today - I got lost as per usual and had to back track a fair bit at one point. I also pretty much rode the entire length of the Moonshiner 28 over the course of the 2 days. Highly recommended!

Day 5 Route

I had found out that the weather was about to turn nasty, and in feeling content with my trip, I decided to head home. In doing so I had the pleasure of riding NC209 aka "The Rattler" which leads to the 212/352. Another amazing piece of pavement.

This is the route I was taking because I needed to check out the infamous "Snake" US421. There is a nice general store halfway through this road, which also serves as a nice place to grab a quick bite, get some gas and pick a up souvenir or two. Most of the clothing in there is cruiser oriented with dragons, snakes and skulls - but I was able to find to less obnoxious shirts and some more stickers for the cases. The Snake was heaps of fun. So many curves, so much smooth pavement, lot's of really tight twists and elevation changes. After leaving the US421, I headed north along Denton Valley Rd, which I would also recommend. It twists and meanders through some farm hilly country and there is no traffic and pavement is great. US421 and Denton Valley Rd together look like this.

I feel like I must have ridden about 500 hairpin turns over the course of this trip, and by the end of them, I was getting quite proficient at getting my body position proper to smoothly carve through the turns. Thanks to the Lee Parks course.
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I was supposed to stop at a campground called Blue Bend, but it would seem that 11hours of riding wasn't enough for me, so I pressed on. It started to get dark and the temperatures were dropping really fast, so I ended up getting a motel in Summersville WV.
 
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Day 6 Route
I really like the ride through Monongahela National Forest. It's really scenic and filled with fast sweepers and a few slightly more technical sections here and there. It's a great place to go see fall colours.
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From here I made my way over to an area in West Virgina recommended by some other members here - and that would be riding up to the top of Spruce Knob and checking out Smoke Hole Rd. Together they are very close to each other, but they couldn't be more different. The ride up to Spruce Knob took me up to the highest point in West Virginia and it was really interesting to see the change in landscape (in such a short periods of time) from amazing yellowing deciduous trees to stunted evergreens around 5000ft. Smoke Hole Rd on the other hand was started by riding along a meandering road beside a beautiful river with very high canyon walls surrounding me. It reminded me of places I had been to in Arizona and Utah. Then it moved into this twisty awesomeness out of nowhere. Too bad for me, it started to rain really heavily at the twisty part and there were wet leaves on the road, so I had to take it easy.

The ride up to Spruce Knob
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After finishing up Smoke Hole, I just selected go home on my GPS and lo and behold it took me right through downtown Pittsburgh in rush hour. Awesome. I should have been home by 9pm but with all the traffic and snow at elevation, I didn't stand a chance of making it. Yes, there was snow, and I was riding in heavy snow for about an hour. This picture is just when I rode up in elevation and came upon the white stuff. I thought oh how pretty - if only I knew what was ahead...
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I wasn't sure if it would let up, so I bit the bullet and grabbed another motel in Cranberry PA. My first motel was a Super 8 for $64/night. The second motel was a Motel 6 for $63/night. For the extra dollar, Super 8 offered me a cleaner, more comfortable room, a microwave, free secured wifi, free breakfast and much friendly staff.
 
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Day 7 Route - there should never have been a Day 7...
The next day I was able to ride home along the 62 to get to Buffalo which was a great route suggested. While getting to the southern section of the 62 and along the first bit of it, I was treated to more snow at elevation - this time it was a total whiteout where I could only see about 20 feet in front of me. I didn't stop to photograph this one, because my hands were wet and frozen if that makes any sense. None of it was sticking to the ground, so I still felt safe to have decent traction, but I had an inch thick layer of slush on my windscreen and it was a real treat on my visor. I'm very thankful for squeegee wipers on gloves. and it's all part of the adventure and experience. As per usual, once I crossed the border, the sun started shining until I got home.

It would have been nice to ride all the cray gravel roads down there, so I might have to go back once more for good measure.

Here's a few more pics - some from my GoPro while wearing my chest mount. I also took many videos using the chest mount, but it was positioned too low so what I ended up with is hours of video of my tankbag making motorcycle noises - if anyone is interested.
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All in all it was another amazing trip. I spent too much time on the bike to actually meet people and take in the natural beauty - but that was not the purpose of this trip. I ride with heated jacket, gloves and socks and could not have done this trip without them. The Anakee 3's are an amazing pavement tire. I had the bike (and myself) leaned much farther over going much faster than I ever have and there wasn't ever the slightest feeling of loss of traction. My last set was the Tourances (non EXP) and if I get good mileage out of the Anakee's they will be my tire of choice. Also I found I finally had an opportunity to put the tank grip pads to use and they were a huge improvement at keeping me from falling off the bike during high speed cornering - I find the gas tank slippery with textile pants.

In summary - if you have never been riding in the Smokies - go.
 
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Nice trip - I did some of those roads this year. You mention the Cherry Cola - Have you ever gone south from Telico Plains on the 68.
If not then you need to do that one the next time you go down that way.
 
Great writeup as always Shane
if you are ever in the area again this road is a real treat.

http://goo.gl/maps/6QowD

I will save this thread for when we go down in the spring.
 
Nice trip - I did some of those roads this year. You mention the Cherry Cola - Have you ever gone south from Telico Plains on the 68.
If not then you need to do that one the next time you go down that way.

Yeah I went on the 68 twice the last time I was down there - very nice road indeed. I wanted to spend more time on roads I had not been on before - also the reason why I didn't even ride the dragon this time around as well.

Great writeup as always Shane
if you are ever in the area again this road is a real treat.

http://goo.gl/maps/6QowD

I will save this thread for when we go down in the spring.

Thanks - that looks like a good road indeed!
 
Day 7 Route - there should never have been a Day 7...
The next day I was able to ride home along the 62 to get to Buffalo which was a great route suggested. While getting to the southern section of the 62 and along the first bit of it, I was treated to more snow at elevation - this time it was a total whiteout where I could only see about 20 feet in front of me. I didn't stop to photograph this one, because my hands were wet and frozen if that makes any sense. None of it was sticking to the ground, so I still felt safe to have decent traction, but I had an inch thick layer of slush on my windscreen and it was a real treat on my visor. I'm very thankful for squeegee wipers on gloves. and it's all part of the adventure and experience. As per usual, once I crossed the border, the sun started shining until I got home.

It would have been nice to ride all the cray gravel roads down there, so I might have to go back once more for good measure.

Here's a few more pics - some from my GoPro while wearing my chest mount. I also took many videos using the chest mount, but it was positioned too low so what I ended up with is hours of video of my tankbag making motorcycle noises - if anyone is interested.
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All in all it was another amazing trip. I spent too much time on the bike to actually meet people and take in the natural beauty - but that was not the purpose of this trip. I ride with heated jacket, gloves and socks and could not have done this trip without them. The Anakee 3's are an amazing pavement tire. I had the bike (and myself) leaned much farther over going much faster than I ever have and there wasn't ever the slightest feeling of loss of traction. My last set was the Tourances (non EXP) and if I get good mileage out of the Anakee's they will be my tire of choice. Also I found I finally had an opportunity to put the tank grip pads to use and they were a huge improvement at keeping me from falling off the bike during high speed cornering - I find the gas tank slippery with textile pants.

In summary - if you have never been riding in the Smokies - go.

Awesome trip - except for the snow part :) Heated gear makes a huge difference - I wasn't even chilled yesterday even in the rain clipping at 130 on the 401 - polar fleece long johns, heated jacket liner, leathers over that, rain gear over that, Gerbings heated waterproof gloves.

Tempts me to add on that extra 3 hours today and at least do the Cherohala - agree with you on top rides in terms of combining both fun to ride and scenic Peak-to-Peak in Co is a close second I you can hit it when its not crawling with tourists
 
When I was in the Jefferson Forest - I missed the road I wanted to go down and ended up on the 311.
It is an exceptionally great road. Just to many roads to travel. The mountains down there are just to good.
Would be nice to spend a month riding all the great ones. We just zig zagged all the way down to the Highlands.
& back around, The Rattler is a fab road. I was going to do the 226A but on the dragon site they were saying
under construction and that it had tar snakes everywhere and to use at your own risk. (Was it all fixed up when
you were there?)
 
Shane>
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great report. Hope to have some riding when I get back next week from the west coast but nothing quite so edgy. Heated vest is good and no wires....grips work well with the wider windscreen.

We'll see as the temps drop.
 
I was going to do the 226A but on the dragon site they were saying
under construction and that it had tar snakes everywhere and to use at your own risk. (Was it all fixed up when
you were there?)

I can't remember if there were tar snakes on the road and it would have been too cold for them to be slippery or affect traction. It's a little on the short side, but when combined with Hwy 80 or the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is an awesome addition to a route. The loop itself is only about 30minutes long, but if I had more time, I would have done it a few more times because it was that awesome.
 
What a great ride report Shane! You're doing the type of riding and making the types of trips I would really like to do.....if I had the free time.
 
I'm not sure what it is with GPSs in that area - my Garmin Zumo eliminate the entire state of NC from the data bank and insisted the closest accommodation was in Ky. If travelling in that area and not familiar with it I really recommend paper maps as back up. Actually in any of the mountainous states I have had the GPS send me on bizarre routes.
 
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Every time I got lost it was because the GPS sent me the wrong way, or tried to recalculate the route to send me back to my end point within the shortest possible time. I printed paper maps of each route and they are what saved me each time.
 
I have experienced "Adventures by Garmin" as well, so I plot the route as a track and follow that with minimal error.

Great ride report. It really makes me wish the season wasn't over this end of the country.
 
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Having Forever Maps on your iPhone usually is the fall back for me when the GPS goes stupid. You just have to make sure you have the correct states downloaded.

The maps are physically on your phone and as long as you have a GPS signal you know where you are.

It has very basic routing as well.

TomTom on the iPhone also gets seriously stupid at times.
 
Shane, do you have a GDB or GPX file for the route you did? I'd love to have something to play with in mapsource for next year.
 
I have experienced "Adventures by Garmin" as well, so I plot the route as a track and follow that with minimal error.

Great ride report. It really makes me wish the season wasn't on this end of the country.

I am hopelessly inept in plotting any kind of GPS routes - not much better at Google - guess its my dinosaur brain.
 
First off, I have a Garmin Nuvi 550 and I do all my routing in Google Maps because I find it much more user friendly than Mapsource or Basecamp. I then read the tutorials below and spent a bit of time practicing them and now I can easily do the routes on Google Maps and convert them to proper files for my GPS to read. I tried doing this a few different ways, because different tutorials show different methods which yield different results.
The way I do it involves saving the twisty route I've created in Google Maps, into "My Maps" within Google. This is done by scrolling to the very bottom of the directions on the left side column of your Google Map route. Save it to my maps and then there will be a little .kml button under the name of the file. I then rename the file to something I would like better by clicking on "edit". Then I save this .kml file to my computer by right clicking on it and choosing save as.

I can then open the .kml file into basecamp which I can convert to a route within basecamp. Otherwise, there are lots of free programs and web resources that will convert the .kml files for you into .gdb or .gpx ... some good ones are http://gpx2kml.com/ or http://www.sackman.info/. I used the 2nd one (sackman.info) because it allowed me to save my .kml files as .gdb files with invisible waypoints, so I didn't have the messy flags all over the screen.

Note that if you want to have the visible waypoints, different gps units have limits on the number of waypoints you can have for one route. With the Nuvi 550 it has a 200 waypoint limit in custom routes. To give you some context, some of my routes would have had 500-1000 waypoints - letting the gps know when to curve to the right or left on a particular road....
This route will not have waypoints (flags) in basecamp, because the flags become really annoying on the little screen of the actual GPS unit. The only downside to this technique is that like Ronnie mentioned, you need to stay on route, otherwise the gps often will not lead you back to your planned route if you go off course.

I gleaned my method of doing it mostly form the info in these two threads:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=861155
http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=916190

The only other shortcoming I found was that occasionally my GPS would recalculate the route to get me back to my final destination as fast as possible. I had all avoidance's turned off within the GPS unit and it was still doing this. I would notice this because all of a sudden the time of reaching final destination would change from 6pm to 1pm or something like that. I would zoom out of the screen and sure enough it was routing me directly to my final destination, skipping all of the god roads I had planned out. To correct the problem while on the go, I would basically have to stop the current custom route, and reload the same custom route and it would then work proper.

I do all of this on PC not Mac, so I'm not sure what minor differences will be there when doing the file conversions mentioned below. I don't think of myself as tech savvy at all, but I just spent a bit of time with it and it worked out amazing. If I had to do this ride with paper maps it would have taken a lot longer and been much more frustrating.

I hope this helps any of you trying to do this.

Ronnie: I do have these files saved as gdb and/or gpx files. When I get a moment, I'll post them all up.
 

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