A lot of what we did is described in the thread on the Chattanooga ride so I will try not to repeat any thing covered there. I will try to share some info about equipment that you might use on your next long trip. Of course, these are just my opinions. Use your own best judgment.
I highly recommend the Stebel horn if you are going on a long journey. I was a little reluctant to add it to the bike at first because someone in Dallas might shoot if you blow a horn at them but the horn, though loud, is not that bad. Take your chances with the road rage. It is better to be alive. I found the horn especially useful driving down a country road at 60, seeing a pickup roll slowly toward the intersection. I would hit the horn and, invariably, they would come to a full stop. I'm just guessing at what was going on in their mind but I believe it was something like, "What the hell was that? Did I miss something? Is there a big truck close?" By the time they figure it out I was past the intersection and out of danger.
Don't attach an ipod with a hard drive to the bike. It will beat the Ipod to death. Mine lasted about 45 minutes and died. The newer flash drive players are much better.
The new TomTom Rider 2 and I did not communicate well in the beginning but by the end of the trip I knew its limitations and we got along well enough. Be sure to study your map before you set an itinerary. You want to know generally what roads you should be on. They might have built a new section of road and the TomTom can be lost but it will trace you riding through what it thinks are open fields and back to the old section. Also, look at the alternate routes through a town of any size. You and the unit may not agree as to what the best road to take. If you know the routes you will not be afraid to override it.
Another thing to be sure to do is set a destination before you leave. We left on a ride Sunday and I didn't enter a new destination. I thought it would just show me the road but no. It still had the old destination of my hotel in its memory so it kept yammering in my ear to turn back, make a u turn, etc.
What I did love about the TomTom was that I hard wired it beforehand so it was always powered and doing its best. The bluetooth worked well enough and I even took one phone call I needed as I cam back into Dallas.
You can pack very little and get by well this time of year. I bought 3 quick dry shirts and 3 pair of quick dry underwear. I filled a small plastic bottle with Ivory liquid and washed out stuff at night. It is dry by in the morning. Just roll the wet stuff up in a hotel towel and squish it before laying it out. If anyone has a link for quick dry socks I'd appreciate it.
Now for the big equipment - the MP3. The machine performed flawlessly. It is a great piece of engineering. You will become very aware of that if you ride the Dragon on a weekend. The Dragon is 318 curves in 11 miles and they are often sharp and you don't know how long you will have to hold the line when you go into them. None of the MP3s I know of had a problem. Harleys are a different matter. There were several that went off the road.
My own experience was that I was moving down the Dragon pretty well, thinking all my friends (from whom I was separated) were ahead of me. I was trying to catch them and also was starving. I came up behind two Harleys and had to follow them for a time. They were braking almost every turn. My dad was a mechanic and always told me to avoid braking when possible so that is what I was doing. In fact, I had only touched my brakes one or two times before catching the Harleys. I had to drop back and give them extra room to stay off my brakes. Finally we round a corner and see about 12 stopped motorcycles and 6 guys or so pushing a huge Harley cruiser out of a ditch. The mud on his bike looked like he hit the hill cut back for the road.
We waited a minute and then one of the Harley riders in front of me said, "Go on around we don't want to hold you up." I stopped and ate later, then started back to the hotel and got caught in a rainstorm and stopped at a gas station. The same Harleys had passed me while I ate and were there. "That bike of yours sure leans into those corners well," he said. I agreed. Then I was off after the storm passed and ran into another rainstorm a few miles before I got to the hotel. All of that is described on the Chattanooga thread.
So much for the equipment, now for what I saw. Chattanooga Cycle and Scooter is probably the most impressive dealer in the country. The have about 2 acres or so, a beautiful showroom and shop, a huge inventory and stock of merchandise. There are outdoor tables and benches,, coolers filled with drinks and a barbeque stand next door they rent out on their property and space where they plan some low-cost biker cabins. Everyone there could not be more helpful. If you get anywhere near there you should pay them a visit. You'll be happy you did.
I knew TN was beautiful so I kind of expected what I saw there but they had better riding than anyone could hope for. The same goes for NC and several other states I went through. I was riding to find the Dragon (hwy 129) after losing my friends and went over a hill to see a "Welcome to NC" sign. "I didn't know I was going to NC," I thought. I didn't know that the Dragon is shared by those two states.
Greenville, SC was gorgeous. It has a river and water fall in the middle of town with a huge park. My friend has a condo in a high rise across the street and a condo "lake house" I stayed in. The unique thing is that the drive from one to the other is 10 minutes. It is like me having a lake house at Northpark or Valley View in Dallas. We just don't have anything like it.
I'm throwing in some pics below. Us129photos.com takes photos of bikes on the Dragon and I bought a couple of those. Trailofthedragon.com also takes pictures and got one of me that they ran with a caption of "The MP3 looks like something out of Starwars."
About 8 of us rode the Dragon on Saturday. Fozzy and bdog94tiger01bdog94tiger01 both wanted to ride Sunday so we did the Parkway and more then split. They went back to GA and I went to SC. In all I was gone 9 days, rode every day but one and did 2,431 miles - just over 300 per day avg. It was a vacation I will never forget.
NOTE; SOME OF MY photos are not the right size and I will have to submit those later. Sorry.
Group on Fri night at a downtown
Chattanooga event sponsored by dealer
At the table Fri
2nd table shot
Us tourists
Shot of me used by TrailoftheDragon.com
(courtesy of bdog getting it)
The 3 of us on Sunday
Downtown Greenville
Park in downtown Greenville
Lake house 10 min from downtown
Greenville
My bike on the Natchez Trace
Pic by 129photos - bought it
⚠️ Last edited by jerryw on UTC; edited 2 times
The last get together was orchestrated by georgiagirl. Even though I only caught a part of the gathering, it was great to meet jerryw - even though my first encounter with him was when he blew by me as I was trying to wave him over
Just joking man...my best friend lives in Manchester (of course that's not saying much either LOL)
(up north Florida!)
