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Friday was looking like it would be the first pretty day that I might could sneek a ride in, however I have a class on Friday at 11:00 to 12:15. Fortunitly, due to the snow day, my materials lab got pushed back which effected the lecture and was inturn cancled. Friday was now a riding day.
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Josh and I finished putting his GSXR 600 back together after completing some regular maintanence and upgrades. His recent purchase of front and rear stands made this process much easier!
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Thursday night I did some research and put together a 300 mile loop that went towards Asheville, NC and then north towards Morganton, NC and back to Charlotte. My intentions were to stay on eastern side of the mtns to avoid any snow and ice that may have not melted completely up at higher elevations. In addition to this, Josh would be breaking in a new rear tire, so a decent amount of highway was needed before we got to the twisties in order to heat the tire up nice and remove those oils.
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Friday morning we were on the road by 9am. It was still a bit chilly, but not horrible. We headed down 85 to 74E towards Hindersonville. As usual the roads were empty in the morning so we set a quick path to the mtns. We stopped briefly on 74 to do one last check on Josh's bike to make sure everything was lined up right and discussed how far his speedometer was now off due to his gearing change.
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I had seen on the internet that Hwy 176N toward Hindersonville was supposed to be nice, so we got off 74 to SR-108 which intersected 176 a few miles down the road.
Once we got to the 176 intersection, we pulled off to get a few pictures at this nice looking park.
Turns out that the park was also a hoarse park, if you call it that. This included those jumping things and a show ring. (You can tell I know nothing about that sport)
Josh had a really good idea for picture with the stables. Put the bikes in a stable and caption it, "This stable has never had this many hoarses in it at once." I was close to doing it, but then some fancy looking people came by on a golf cart and they were eyeing the stables and rings. -
A few minutes later we headed off up 176 towards Hindersonville. The roaded started out nice, a bit rough it spots but not too bad. This didn't last long. As we climbed up the mtn, it was apperent that they had much more snow that we did! While the roads were clear of the white stuff, the sides weren't and it was melting quickly. In addition to this, there was alot off salt and debris from fallen trees. The road continued to become worse as we climbed. The asphalt quality went down and there was more water on the road. While the road was tight and twisty, there was no way to carry speed through the corners safely. We made our way though that mess and into Hindersonville around lunch time. So we stopped at a Wendy's to grab a quick bite.
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From there we headed up 64 E toward Lake Lour and Chimney Rock on Hwy 9. I knew this road pretty well, so I mounted the camera to the side of the bike and headed down Hwy 9 toward the lake. Some I put on my tank map to turn right on 9, which sent us south. We actually needed to go North. I didn't relize this till we got to the lake and figured out that we didn't need to be there. Oh well. We turned around and came back up to where messed up and went the right way.
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Hwy 9 is a nice road, tight in some areas, sweepers in others. It does however at the top, near I-40, get very populated and has alot of traffic! On this route, we turned right on Old Fort Rd. to miss this and try and different road. I left the camera on for this one!
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Old Fort, led us up to I-40. I packed up the camera and we headed up it for a few miles to Marion, NC to get on 70. Off 70 is SR-126 which is nice winding road with some great scenery. However, if you go up it about 3 miles and turn right on Fish Hatchery, you are in for a treat. Once again, another great country road that actually goes by a fish hatchery ran by the forestry service. I don't know if it is open to the public, but I imagine it would neat to check out.
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Fish Hatchery led us to Hwy 181, which turns into a wide, smooth and fast mtn road! On my tank map I marked it to turn left on 181, but it had been wrong before! There were no road signs at this intersection, so I was starting to think back to my days of riding at Brown Mountain, which was off this road. A few seconds later I see a semi heading our way. As he passes I key up on the CB asking him which way he was heading. To my surprise, he responds, informing me that he was heading south. I thanked him and we headed the opposite direction.
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Once we got up to the good part of 181 (north of Steel Creek Campground) we pulled over so I could turn on the camera. This is what it recorded.
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Unforunitly I didn't keep up with how much I had recorded on that SD card. Doh! It only recorded those 2 mins of video on 181. Oh well. That run up 181 was amazing! The roads were clear and the traffic was at a minimum. When we did get behind some traffic, we were normally coming out of some single lane and into a passing zone. It was great, you couldn't ask for much better. Oh well. This gives me a good excuse to get back up there to do it again....
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We topped off our tanks at an old Marathon that has a nice store dedicated to motorcycles. Check out the Labor day ride from 2008 for more info on this store. Then across 183 to 221 which runs into 226 to bring us back into Shelby on 74.
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The only bad part about this was that we would be getting on 85 at 5:30 on a Friday... darn it. Josh was tired at this point, which had me concerned, so we stopped at a CVS in Shelby, off 226 to stretch and get focused again. To my surprise it wasn't as bad as I though it was going to be. We made it home safely and just in time for some of my friends to come over and cook some hotwings and have a few cold ones. We were playing paintball on Saturday!
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~350 miles, not bad for a season opener!
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