Well I am leaving Friday morning at 7am from Charleston, SC and headed up to camp at the Iron Horse and ride the surrounding area this weekend. Meeting a long time buddy up there that I have not seen in years and the weather is looking great for this weekend. It might be a little cool at night in a tent but its going to be great temps during the day. This upcoming weather forecast is what made me decide to ride it there and back. Plus I have always wanted to do a good trip from the bike.
Its about 5.5 hours by interstate according to map quest but I may take a few side roads to make it more fun getting there. I have ridden up there a few times but I have never loaded my bike and ridden it there. Normally I trailer it up there and ride when I get there. I also normally have my wife with me so this will actually be the first time I have ever ridden the mountains without a passenger! Loading my VFR up with everything I need, or think I need, was pretty fun. I know my bike can handle the run, I just hope my back holds out for it!
I will take some pics and do a ride report next week.
Any tips from you guys that have done long rides on your VFR's ?
Have some sort of throttle lock, letting go of the throttle and getting some blood through your right arm is priceless after about an hour on the bike.
Switchblade.... If you see my black VFR with OEM bags and an old Yamaha FJ1200 together, that will be us! We are thinking of playing around on the Dragon on Friday and Saturday we will be riding everywhere else. Leaving Sunday morning and heading back home.
I have a few notes of side routes that have been suggested to try. All seem to add a considerable amount of travel time to getting there. I may just stick to the interstate for most of the way there just so I can get there earlier in the day. If I am making really good time or am getting really sick of the interstate, (which I am sure I will), then I may get side tracked on some of these back roads.
I do have a throttle lock and a cramp buster on my bike. I do think that they are going to come in handy for this ride.
Switchblade.... If you see my black VFR with OEM bags and an old Yamaha FJ1200 together, that will be us! We are thinking of playing around on the Dragon on Friday and Saturday we will be riding everywhere else. Leaving Sunday morning and heading back home.
I have a few notes of side routes that have been suggested to try. All seem to add a considerable amount of travel time to getting there. I may just stick to the interstate for most of the way there just so I can get there earlier in the day. If I am making really good time or am getting really sick of the interstate, (which I am sure I will), then I may get side tracked on some of these back roads.
I do have a throttle lock and a cramp buster on my bike. I do think that they are going to come in handy for this ride.
Did not see you either day , there were 3 bad wrecks on Saturday alone. And corvette boys set a Guinness Book World Record by having 466 corvettes in a continuous line on Friday.
Did not see you either day , there were 3 bad wrecks on Saturday alone. And corvette boys set a Guinness Book World Record by having 466 corvettes in a continuous line on Friday.
Did not see you either day , there were 3 bad wrecks on Saturday alone. And corvette boys set a Guinness Book World Record by having 466 corvettes in a continuous line on Friday.
We made it up there okay. We did make a last minute change of plans as to where we were staying. And since the temps got lower at night than what we were planning for, my buddy and my wife talked me into trailering the VFR up there instead of riding it like I wanted to. Probably a good thing because it was like 33 degrees when I wanted to get back on the road Sunday morning and I my gear does not support those temps.
We were on the Dragon about 4:30 to 5:00. We did see the Corvettes. Right as we were getting ready to get back on the bikes and head down is when they started coming. We waited for a while and finally we just jumped in the crowd of them and headed down. My buddy said in one turn a cruiser over shot the turn and started dragging the frame. All he saw was a cruiser and sparks that just missed him and then from what he could see in his mirror, the cruiser smashed a Corvette behind him. I did not see it and he only got a quick glimpse of it in his mirror. We both hope everyone came out of it okay.
We did have a good trip. Spent Friday afternoon riding around in that area. Saturday morning we had to go find my buddy some thermals to keep warm and we road up 441 and that surrounding area. Came back down to the Motorcycle Museum and checked that out before heading back down to the Cherokee area.
There were a lot of roads we would like to have hit but just not enough time to do it. But there will always be other weekends to hit those. We were told about a few places where the roads turned dirt and it was not advisable for us to try and hit them on our bikes. That is the kind of stuff that makes me want to run them anyway and see where they go. Guess one day I will have to get an adventure machine so I can really explore that stuff without fear of screwing up the VFR.