Day Trip to Ski-Beech

As we approach the middle of December, Mother Nature continues to tease us with ideal slope conditions. After it got nice and cool for the season opener at Sugar Mountain, the weather turned warm and rainy for a couple days. That pretty much killed all the snow that Sugar had built up. However, following this warm rain was a good cold snap that brought some moisture with it. Boone and the higher elevations were hit with 4-6 inches of powder and highs in the upper 20’s. The snow guns were running non stop, day and night. With this, Josh Beasley and myself were constantly watching Ray’s Weather as well as the slope cameras for Sugar and Beech. With these types of conditions it was looking like the major runs would be opening up shortly.

In the following week, Travis and Josh were blowing me up asking when we would head to the mountains for some boarding. Honestly, I wasn’t ready to go yet as I was hoping to wait till the black diamonds were opened up. Didn’t really feel like spending the money in gas and lift tickets to ride the same greens and blues all day on poor snow. This was fine and well until Josh had finally had enough of watching the blowers on the computer, he wanted to shred. With this urge he offered to foot the gas bill in my truck if we went. Well, that wasn’t a difficult decision to make. So I called Travis to let him know that we were going, and well… he got a bit upset because he couldn’t make it on Saturday. He will get over it, I’m sure.

Friday night I headed over to Josh’s place to crash; we were planning on leaving his house early to ensure we were on the slopes right after they opened. After dinner, Josh and I watched, “The Art of Flight”, Travis’ Rice’s new video. One word to describe that film, EPIC! Any boarder or skier should really watch this film as it tops his previous film, “That’s It. That’s All.”

5:30am, Josh and I are loading up the truck with the gear and headed out of Thomasville, NC and making our way towards Banner Elk, NC. Once on 421, we made a quick stop at Bo jangles for a Cajun Filet and continued heading west with sun rising behind us.

That day was the start of my second season on my Burton Clash and unfortunately it caught some hell last year when I was taken out by a couple kids at Sugar. The board had a couple large gashes in it and they needed to be filled. Thankfully I have made some good friends that work at Alpine Ski Center. Before our trip, I made arrangements with, “Fluffy” to have him wax my board before we headed up the mountain. After killing 20 minutes in Alpine, Fluffy gave my board back with a hand shake and out the door we went.

While we were at Alpine we made the decision to go to Beech for the day since Sugar was having their “Sugar Fest.” They would have the K2 reps there and you could demo the new gear, live band playing, rail jam, etc. Seeing as how Josh and I had no interest in buying new gear and weren’t going to enter a rail jam, we decided Beech would be the better option with the high speed lift.

By 9:30am Josh and I were on the lift for the first run of the day. The blowers were on all over the mountain, including White Lightning, their black diamond. (Still closed though)

After a couple runs the cloud cover had moved in, add the blowers into the equation and visibility was poor. At times it became difficult to see 50 feet out but we made the best of it and typically the poor visibility was only for short section.

Josh ready to make the first run of the season!

Not my first lift of the season, but stoked to be in my own gear and getting the season going.

Blowers were covering mountain that day.

Blower on White Lightning doing work. Never noticed that road there... explain the ledge that is right there every year.

Good photo showing the grade of that part of the slope. Fun run, just wish more of it was like that part.

After a couple warm up runs I began working on riding switch. For those that aren’t familiar with these kinds of sports, riding switch is riding backwards to what you are used to. I have learned to ride, “normal” or left foot forward as I go down the mountain. So to ride switch is to go “goofy” for me with right foot forward. Once you’re so used to riding one way and having each foot do its own task on the board, it’s hard to re train it.

I would ride switch on the lower half of the mountain, trying to practice going from edge to edge. As you can imagine I fell a good bit, mainly when I tried to go from my heel edge back to my toe edge. In addition to riding switch I began working on my spins. After a few runs I was able to complete multiple spins to my right side while moving down the mountain. I am still working on spinning to my left. Not sure why it’s more difficult, but it is…

Around 11:30 the clouds got really thick, Josh and I were ready for a break anyhow so we decided to take an early lunch. In an attempt to save some money, we packed our lunch and spent an hour resting in the truck. During that time the clouds began taperi off a bit, making visibility better on the mountain.

After a few more runs down Upper and Lower Shawneehaw I was slowly starting to get the hang of riding switch. With that, Josh and I decided to make an entire run down the mountain riding switch. As you can imagine, I fell, a lot. My legs were shot and I had to take a couple rests on the way down the mountain. Eventually I did make it and I did ride the entire run switch.

After a 10 minute break, Josh came up with the brilliant idea to race down the mountain. (Normal stance) The slopes really weren’t that crowded and the visibility was ok at the time. Off the start I was ahead, but not for long. Josh came by me pretty quick as I made a poor line choice in the middle of the slope. I started to gain on him after turning onto Lower Shawneehaw, however, a skier bit the dust right in front of me about half way down and I had to make a hard turn to avoid him and I lost a ton of speed. I tried pumping to gain speed back but my legs just weren’t having it. Josh pulled ahead a bit as we made our way into Crossover and onto Freestyle. However, on Freestyle he took a bit of a wide line to avoid the snow blowers. I wasn’t about to get my ass handed to me, so I sucked it up and got as tight as I could to the inside of Free style and did my best to tuck below the blowers. By the time we made it to the drop off just before the chair lift line I was within a couple feet of Josh. At the drop off (which we called the finish line) I cut hard to get to the inside of him. As I made my way to the lip I lost my edge and my board went up, my ass went down and I began to slide. As this happened, I looked up to see that my board was within inches of Josh’s calf’s as he made the drop. I almost had him! Since I lost, I had to buy dinner… oh well. It was a fair race.

Josh and I were both shot after that so we decided to take another breather before heading back onto the chair lift. At this point the cloud cover was very sporadic. They would be heavy one minute and then clear up the next. So each run we made for the rest of the afternoon, we would sit at the top and wait for a few moments for it to clear up before we made our run.

A little cloudy down there....

Good enough... time to shred.

Blue sky eventually showed up, for a bit.

On Lower Shawneehaw, Beech had a few small park features set up, one of which was 1 foot diameter pipe with a slight ramp leading up to it. There were blowers all around this area which had the pipe extremely icy. With that in mind I wasn’t about to try and ride it. However the lip leading up to it was pretty good so I start jumping off it. After realizing my vertical hop was pretty good, I decided that I could probably jump over the pipe by crossing it from left to right. Success! Josh was able to do it as well. After doing this a couple times, we decided to take some video of it.

Me jumping over the rail.

Josh getting a grab off the lip.

Around 4:15, Josh and I were beat. Our legs were dead and the cold air was starting to move back in. We called it a day and headed for the truck. After packing up our gear we headed into Boone to visit, Mellow Mushroom for some good pizza and cold beer.

We made it home that night around 8pm. Overall it was good day of riding considering the run that was open and both took advantage of the easier runs by improving on some of our tech skills. Looking forward to the next slope session! (If weather co-operates, it looks like I will be spending New Years on the slopes!)

Side Note: Today (12/14/2011) it is in the 50’s with clear skies in the mountains.

First Session of 2011-2012!

Mother Nature is not being very nice to those of us that want to be on the slopes… In the last couple weeks it has been unseasonably warm and rainy. Sugar Mountain has been blowing snow for a couple weeks now off and on and been open for a couple days at a time. However, Beech Mountain had their scheduled opening day for December 3rd and was blowing as much snow as possible at night and during the day when the temps were down.

Winterplace isn’t releasing a lot of information regarding snow blowing or opening dates yet. However, Snowshoe is talking about opening up Friday, December 9th and has mentioned that they are blowing when possible. As you can imagine I am constantly checking the weather forecast and checking the slope cameras to see how things are coming along. Each day has been a disappointment…

A couple weeks back, Will Greene mentioned going up to Boone to watch the playoff game between Appalachian State and Maine. I was able to make the plans and decided to ride up there with him. I had a great time the night before the game as well as tailgating before hand. Unfortunately, App didn’t play too well and Maine won the game. So to release some frustrations, Will and I joined Josh Von Canon on the slopes at Sugar Mountain. Josh had plenty of extra gear for us to borrow and Sugar had the upper and lower flying mile open that night.

After packing up all the gear and stocking the cooler we headed out of Banner Elk and over to Sugar Mountain. (You could hear the snow blowers from several miles away)

“3/4 station” was the farthest you could go up the mountain at this point. This was fine and well until we got there and I realized which off load point that was. This off load point has one hell of a steep ramp leading to the slopes from the chair. First run on the season, unfamiliar gear, slight intoxication… this is not looking good. Thankfully I did manage to get down the ramp safely and continued to do so all night.

First run down felt good! The snow wasn’t great, but it wasn’t icy and all I had to do was dodge the blowers. It was warm 36 degrees out so I was comfortable as well, hot at times. There weren’t a lot of people out that night so we almost had the slopes to ourselves.

After a few more beers and few more runs I had started to get my legs about me again and was starting to push my pace a bit. I started moving out of the main lines and off into the fluff and choppy snow where few people ride. This is normally the area I love to carve, however the board I was on was a park board and it didn’t much care for the rough stuff. So it made it a bit of challenge to keep speed and not bust my ass when riding in it.

The slopes shut down at 10pm that night. We ended up making 7-8 clean runs that night. Well worth the discounted lift ticket price. It was a great warm up for the season and it proved to me that the leg workouts I had been doing to prep for the season are working great. I wasn’t the slightest bit sore that night or the following day.

Hopefully the temps will drop off here soon and the snow will fall. This short session has me even more pumped to get out in the snow, SOON!

2011 Riding Season Recap

As we work our way though the holiday season of 2011 I'd like to take a bit to look back of the riding season that has come to a close. It has been a busy year and unfortunately I didn't get to ride as much I would have liked. However, the trips I did complete were pretty spectacular and each one opened some doors that I would not have expected.

Dad and I opened the 2011 season with a huge ride. We completed a Bun Burner Gold with Mike "Hammerdown" Brown in March on our way to the IBA party in Jacksonville, Florida. We rode a bit over 1500 miles in 23 hours and 4 minutes. For more details see blog entry, "We Rode to Bike Week the Long Way."

Our "shake down run" a couple weeks before the BBG attempt. We rode around Rowan County and surrounding areas. Stopped a few times to discuss routes and trip plans, etc.

This was our BBG route. Map and points are taken from my SPOT tracker during the ride. Charlotte to Slidell, LA, over to Lake City, Fla, down to Tampa, Fla over to Daytona and up into Jacksonville. We left in the rain on Thursday morning at 12:00am and managed to get soaked in Atlanta. By Slidell, we were back on time, dried out and busted a trail across I-10 to seal the deal.

During the RTE at Flangler Beach the next day, we met this couple. Shane and Annette Cudlin from Australia. They are members of the Far Riders there and were signed up to run the IBR in the summer. (Which they finished, two up!) Turns our their family centers around racing and motorcycles as they own a shop and their sons compete in endurance road races. Damien has even competed in a few MotoGP events on a Ducati and has had a good showing at each race!

Chillin on the side of A1A headed down to Daytona. Nice warm weather in Florida.

In honor of riding my FZ for the BBG attempt, my hero, Barb Smith rode here FZ to the IBA party from Texas.

"Mock-Rageous" made it down to Jacksonville so he could come with us to the Daytona 200 on Saturday afternoon. He rode that small ass Harley from New Bern, NC to Jacksonville and then followed us around Daytona and back home. Jon, you sir are a beast. But you knew that....

Leaving the Daytona 200 got a quick shot of Jon and the sign. The guys in full gear and two with bags, you can see how we stuck out in this crowd.

After the BBG ride I didn't get to do alot of riding since I was keeping the bike back home in Lexington and I was living in Raleigh. In addition the chain and sprockets were shot and I was not comfortable riding on a chain that had the tensile properties of a rubber band...

Memorial day weekend I finally got the bike squared away and spend three days and 4 nights on the road to clear my head from some personal stuff that was going on. Night 1: headed to Mooresville to stay with Travis and his g.f. Rachel. Day 1: Partied on Lake Norman on their friend's boat. Day 2: (pictured) Rode with Travis and my parents up around the Boone area. Day 3: Josh and Jon ran their first track day event at VIR.

Dad, Travis and Myself outside of Blowing Rock for lunch.

On the way to Danville, Va I passed this guy on 58. I think he likes yellow...

Josh looking good as the day progressed.

Jon is on there somewhere... Again, "Mock-rageous"

Made it to an RTE in Hickory, NC when I returned from NYC on business. Good turn out of MTF folks. Got to spend some time riding with Mike Brown, Grizz and the parents.

On Father's Day, Dad and I always make it a point to do something involving bikes. This year we made a day trip up to WV. Dodged the rain and had a good ride up to Beckley and back.

I finally got around to submitting my paperwork for the BBG ride sometime in May. Certificate and backing plate arrived in August.

Working on making a fender with all those backing plates!

In mid August I left NATVAR and started working at TurboCare in Winston-Salem. So I left Raleigh and moved back home with the parents. During the change I managed to work in a week off. So with this, I went riding. No shocker there...

Up on the parkway with Beasley.

Went for a good long day ride with Josh. Started up Hwy 8 to Tuggles Gap. Then rode the parkway south to Boone. Made a pass on 421 and then headed home via 58 and south down to 21.

The Sunday before I started work, Dad and I got out for a day ride to the D-Day memorial in Virgina. Very sombering place.

One nice Saturday afternoon, the group got together for a little ride through the country. Josh, me, Travis & Rachel as well as Mitch on his new ride.

At the list minute I managed to make it to Founders Feast in Western, NC this year. It was held at the Iron Horse Lodge, so I was able to make my yearly Deals Gap ride. :)

The ride to the lodge Friday morning was a bit wet. In fact it rained from the time I left at 4am to the other side of Asheville. However the rain stopped and the clouds lifted as I entered "The Smokies." Amazing sight...

My hotel room for the weekend. Darryl nick named it "The Bates Motel." It wasn't much, but it was cheap and it was clean. Sure, I'd stay there again if I had to.

Saturdays group under Bridal Veil Falls on 64. Had alot of fun riding with this group of misfits!

Eventually the cats were herded for a group photo on the creek bank at the lodge.

Each morning I left my room early to catch a sunrise on the mountain and do a little agressive riding on my own. Sunday morning I made it to the Skyway for a a bit. Shot was taken at the base of the Skyway.

While I was at Founders Feast I managed to ride a Yamaha Super Tenere (S10 for short) and a Suzuki Vstrom. I have been throwing around the idea of getting a large bike for a bit now and those two were on my list. The S10 was just released and the base model runs about 13,000. However, the Vstrom can be bought used for around 5,000 to 8,000. The S10 is everything the Vstrom falls short at, but for the price difference, I think I could deal with it.

Three weeks later....

I found this bike on the Cycle Trader. Bike was located in Atlanta and the seller was a fellow IBA member as well. Wasn't really ready to purchase yet, but the bike was set up and ready to go for LD rides. I had to do it.

Riding the bike home!

Dad and I had a In State SS1000 scheduled for the following Saturday. So I had a week to go through the bike and install my J&M. One thing always leads to another. I ended up rewiring all the farkles on the bike.

The following Saturday, Dad and I completed an In State SS1000 as part of the Jack Shoalmire tribute. We completed a loop of NC in 21 hours I think it was. No shame in admitting that this ride was the toughest one I had ever done.

Now that the Vstrom is around the FZ needs to go. I hate to see it leave as I have enjoyed riding it so much, but to make the swing to the larger bike the old one has to go.

I currently have the bike listed on the forums, craigslist and ebay for 2,800.00.

Lots of fun miles on this bike.

I guess that about sums up the riding year. Not a record year as far as miles were concerned, but I did manage close to 10,000 and completed two IBA rides. I guess I can't complain too much.

I already have a few rides on the books for ext year that I hope to make happen. Dad, Mike and myself are looking to complete a SS2000 (2000 miles in 48 hours) on the way to Jacksonville this year. After that I am planning to make it to Moonshine, Illinois for the Moonshine Lunch Run in mid April. Following that is the MTF ride in Wisconsin in July.

The Vstrom is now parked for the year and looking to be torn down for modifications and maintainence. In the mean time Im looking to keep myself entertained with some snowboarding this winter. (If it ever gets cold)

A New Scoot and a Difficult Ride (Jack Shoalmire Tribute Ride)

PART 1

As far as motorcycles are concerned, the recent weeks have brought some changes to my life. In my last report I am pretty sure I mentioned riding Russ Dickerson’s Vstrom up Hwy 28 and back for a little test ride while attending the Founders Feast a few weeks back. Well after that evening, I was hooked and decided to start seriously looking to buy a Vstrom after the first of the year. Well, about a week after that trip I signed onto cycle trader and did a quick search for a 2004 or newer Vstrom, nation wide. About half way down the webpage I saw a picture of a 08 from the rear with Jesse Bags and an auxiliary fuel cell. As you can imagine, this caught my attention which was further amplified when I saw it was in Atlanta and it had 18,500 miles on it. Digging through the ad and studying the pictures I noticed that the seller was an IBA member as the bike was pictured with an IBA tag back. So I sent the seller an email asking for further information on the bike and left him my contact information.

This was the picture in the ad that caught my attention.

Another ad photo.

Rick Mayer seat :) ... another ad photo.

Long and drawn out story with lots of anxiety and frustrations with the local bank branch made short… Sunday, October 9^th my father and I drove down to Atlanta and I rode it home that evening. At one point I made decided to try out the bikes auto pilot to make sure it was in working order…

The seller, Fred and myself.

Apparently the autopilot is in working order...

Closer to home we made a stop by Mike Brown’s to show it off a bit and talk possum as well. After jawing for a bit in his driveway and enjoying some fresh brownies from Mike’s better half, I pulled the Vstrom in the shop for the first time around midnight.

Monday after work I rushed home and began tearing down the FZ to get the J&M and other miscellaneous things off of it. In addition I started working on the Vstrom by removing the peg lowering mounts, stickers from the bags and fairing and put a little polish on the scars from where it had decided to take a nap with the previous owner. I called it quits sometime around midnight.

Tuesday night, I started the night by pulling the fairing and fuel tank off the Vstrom. The previous owner did a fine job of wiring up the farkles on the bike and even made his own fuse block. However I am a bit of neat freak when it comes to wiring, so I decided that while I had the bike down I wanted to go through and re route some of the wires and clean everything up. That’s never a simple task. After studying the wires for about an hour I finally figured out how he had everything wired. Again, he did a fantastic job and I like how he had it set up. I started with the heated grips, doing one side at a time. Ran the wires from the throttle side along the cables that were already there from the factory then down in front of the head tube down the left side of the frame and then up to the controller. Left side followed suite down to the frame and into the same path as the right. From there I cut the wires off to the horn and the relay that supports it. Ran the power wires a bit different and moved the relay over and secured it with some Velcro to the top of the radiator shroud. Then I ran the signal wires across the top of the shroud under the frame to the horn on the left side. While I was on the right side of the bike I began working with the power switch for the auxiliary fuel pump. This took a bit more time as I had to extend most of the wires there so that I could get clean movement of the forks when steering. Once complete, I called it a night at 1am.

Body work removed and re wiring.

Wednesday night, it was time to wire up the auxiliary lights. The previous owner had mounted them but had not finished wiring them. I spent a couple hours getting those set up by simply jumping power from the fuel pump switch and running a ground wire over to the secondary power supply he had set up on the front of the bike. (This guy knew what he was doing!) Once the lights were operational it was time to mount the J&M unit and run the wires.

Honestly I was dreading this part because I have done it once on the FZ, two or three times on Dad’s old Nomad and had to adjust the wires on the FJR as the previous owner had installed one on that bike. I had a feeling this would take some time and I wasn’t sure of all the signal (spark, etc) wires were on this bike. I don’t know if I got lucky or what, but Dad and I had the wires ran and hooked up in less than two hours. We put the tank on, rolled the bike out and fired it up to test for any noise in the system. Crystal clear… damn we’re good!

Next part was to figure out how to mount the CB antenna. Fortunately we don’t live too far from a truck stop, so we headed over to Bill’s to see what we could find. For 10 bucks I picked up a mirror mount and after some pondering, Dad and I mounted in on the left bag support and it looks great! He gave ourselves a few high fives for that one. (Also helps when your old man is a “retired” chicken hauler)

Dad went on to bed after that, however I stayed up and continued working. I went ahead and ran loom on all the wires, zip tied everything in bundles that didn’t need loom and secured the bundles so they wouldn’t move around or get separated. I was still feeling good so I went ahead and pieced the bike back together. When I finished up, I stepped back and looked at my phone. It was 2am.

Thursday morning I had to take care of some things at the bank and get the tag taken care of. So that gave me some time to sleep before I had to do all that. (Went to work late that day) Once complete I came home with the intentions of riding to work, that idea was killed as I rolled the bike out and rain began to fall. I’m not one to complain about riding in the rain, but showing up to work wet would be less than fun. Thursday night, Dad and I spent the evening cleaning the shop and doing a bit of pre planning for a SS1000 on Saturday which I will get to in a moment. Off to bed by 11pm.

Friday, the weather was nice so I decided to ride to work, which is 40 miles away, to get some miles in on the bike before the ride. After work I headed back to the house, then down to Charlotte to see a friend and then back to the house in Lexington. There were no issues, as I pulled into the shop I had just rolled over 19,000 miles. Dad and I spent the rest of the evening prepping the bikes and setting up for the SS1000 in the morning. Finally went to bed around 11pm.

(Side Note: I really enjoy rewiring bikes to add farkles. Honestly. So if any of the long distance riders are looking to add some toys to their bikes. Let me know, Id be happy to have you over one weekend and we can take care of it. All I'll charge is a 6 pack of beer and a few good road stories. )

PART 2

Going back to March 2011 for a moment when Mike Brown, Dad and I completed the BBG.

The first morning when we were eating breakfast in the hotel, Dad and Mike Brown sat down next to a fellow who introduced himself as Jack Shoalmire. I was later introduced to Jack once I arrived after refusing to get up when Mike pounded on my door that morning. When I arrived, my father was talking to Jack about “The Glory Days” when he raced MX in southern Florida in the late 70’s. From there the discussion moved to our Hare Scramble days, the ISDE’s and enduro’s of the mid/late 90’s in the south east. We must have sat there and swapped racing and trail riding stories for a couple hours that morning before heading off to Daytona. Dad and I both really enjoyed our conversation with Jack and were looking forward to seeing him again at the party in 2012.

One evening when I came home from work/gym Dad was sitting on the couch and had a strange look on his face. When I asked him what was going on, responded that our off road buddy from Jacksonville, Jack Shoalmire, had passed away. What a shame, the world had lost one heck of a rider and a super nice guy.

After this I got on the MTF and thumbed through the information regarding Jack and before long the tribute ride idea had surfaced. One of Jack’s riding goals was to complete a SS1000 in all 50 states and to my understanding he was well on his way to completing this goal before his passing. So as a tribute to Jack, Howard Entman set up a ride on October 15^th that would have at least one rider in each state in the US to ride a SS1000. He asked for volunteers and at the time I hadn’t seen where anyone from NC had signed up. Our time with Jack was short especially compared to some of the IBA/MTF members but I didn’t want to see NC not be completed and felt like this would be a great ride to be a part of. So I signed my father and myself up for NC.

Several ideas had surfaced on the forums about ways to make this even more special, one of which was to have all the riders with SPOT’s sign into a common SPOTWALLA page so that we could all be viewed at once. During the IBR this year someone took a screen shot every so often of the common SPOTWALLA page and made a short video of the trackers moving their way across the US. The same would be done for this ride as over 150 riders made circles of all 50 states. In addition we were asked to take photos with our bikes and ourselves with signs or land marks that are significant to the state we were riding.

Friday evening once I got home from Charlotte, Dad and I began putting the finishing touches on the route and the bikes. We took the bikes outside and made some adjustments to our headlights/aux lights in order to light up the road better with out blinding oncoming traffic. Dad had spent a few hours here and there during the week nailing down the route for the trip. The route we chose was based off the in state route that was used by the MTF back in 2009. He modified slightly so that we could start and finish in Lexington, NC. With the added mileage we were able to eliminate the stop in Wilmington and keep moving down 95 to Lumberton. Route sheets finalized, bikes set up and gear ready for the AM. We went to bed around 11pm with plans of leaving at 7am.

I forgot to set my alarm.

I woke up at 630 and realized that something was wrong and it then it dawned on me that Dad must have been counting on me to wake him up when . Oops, we needed the sleep anyway.

Bout to head to the first gas station and start our In State SS1000

7:30am Dad and I are at the gas station to start the ride. Turned off the pump and checked the address and time stamp on the receipt. The time was over and hour off, we noted this, got the attendant to sign off on it with contact information and headed out.

Starting mileage on the Vstrom. Back down in the numbers again compared to the FZ. (I don't think it will take as long to get this on to 50,000)

Starting mileage for Dad on the FJR.

Start of the ride was fairly uneventful; we headed down 85 to Hwy 150 to connect us over to 74 just outside of Kings Mountains, home of our one and only, Grizz. We took this route over 85 in order to avoid some super slab and to avoid potential traffic from the race that was going in Charlotte that weekend.

We made our next fuel stop on 74 to document the corner and after a few moments we were back on the road heading west to Asheville and Hwy 64.

Hwy 74 is a pretty empty 4 lane divided highway and is great for making up a little time. Once we got to Hendersonville we merged off the slab to Hwy 64 and into Hendersonville. This was the start of our 2 lane slow pace through the NC Mountains. The leaves were starting to turn in this area, but weren’t quite at peak yet so it made for a nice ride as we headed to Murphy, NC.

Following some Wings down 64. One had NC tags, the other had Florida tags. They were riding together, so Dad and I were trying to figure out how they knew each other.

As we got deeper into the Appalachians the roads began to get tight and twisty. This was the first time I was going to put the Vstrom in the corners and I was rather excited to see what it would do. To my surprise the Vstrom did exceptionally well in the tight corners and remained planted through each one. The motor has tons of torque which made exiting corners a real thrill.

Traffic picked up as we made our way into Highlands which was one of our planned stops. We were both starting to get a bit hungry but we lost a bit of time coming through Highlands so we decided to munch on some Fig Newtons and keep rolling.

Route sheets and Fig Newtons... that can only mean one thing.
"Hell, I got to go!" - Cledus Snow, Smokey and the Bandit

Just out side of Highlands on Hwy 64 is a pretty well known water fall known as Bridal Veil Falls. I had visited this area a few weeks earlier during the MTF ride with Mike Brown, The Gillespie’s and a few others. Reflecting back on that ride, I remember chatting across the radio to them about wanting to get onto another bike like the Vstrom and how I think I would really enjoy it. 3 weeks later, on the same road, I am on a Vstrom and enjoying every minute of it.

Dad and I at Bridal Veil Falls. This was a fun photo to capture...

Around 2pm we made our way into Murphy, NC and made our western most fuel stop. At this point the short runs were over and our next stop was scheduled for Marion, NC off I-40. So we headed out making our way up 28/74 to catch I-40 just outside of Asheville. From there it was super slab to Durham, NC.

New cockpit! Got lots of room to add some farkles. :)

Beautiful day for a ride!

I felt like imitating my Florida "buddy" in the Prius video taping the rocks coming down the parkway in 2010.

"Silver Bullet"

Or maybe I should nick name her the Valdese...

First self portrait on the new ride.

As Russ put it, "It was nice of him to leave it in third so I could catch up."

Passing the camera off while rolling down the highway... one of many reasons I purchased the extended warranty on this camera.

FJR cockpit. Barely got it "wound up"

Making our way through the rafting spot outside of Murphy.

You know that water has got to be cold these days...

Stopped for some photos with the BRP sign for the tribute album. This shot was Dad's idea. Thank ya!

I think the FJR will claim the Vstrom. I know it was fond of the FZ.

Such a sweet looking bike. (IMO)

This guy was enjoying his ride on the parkway!

Not long after we got on 40 we picked up a fellow rider that was on BMW and heading east as well. After we passed him he fell in behind Dad and followed us down past Black Mountain at which point we got separated and we lost track of him. However, during this mini-convoy we picked up a Honda civic that decided to roll with us. He would swap lanes with us, move in and out of traffic and covered our rear for miles! When we pulled off in Marion he continued past us. I threw up wave to thank him thinking that maybe he was a rider as well. We stopped at a Love’s truck stop for a hot dinner and to top off with fuel. We enjoyed a Godfather’s calzone before putting our liners back in the jackets and heading east again.

We reached Durham much quicker than I had anticipated. I was used to rolling through the section of 40 between Greensboro and Raleigh as I used to live on the outskirts of Raleigh and to be honest I have come to hate that road as it is so boring. I guess it was the heavy traffic and just being on the bike that made it more entertaining. We made a fuel stop just off I-85 after the 40/85 split to note the corner and we continued north on 85 to catch 158 which led us into Roanoke Rapids, just off I-95.

Now at this point my father and I have both admitted to each other that we are beat. We are cold and we are tired. We both feel like we have more in us, but exhaustion is starting to set it. So we took a few moments to rest, eat some figs and drink some water. After a few moments of resting I decided to do a bit of cardio to get the blood pumping and bring myself back on top. This is what I did: I started with both feet on the ground then put my left foot up on the curb then I brought my right foot up. Following that I stepped off with my left followed by my right. I did these briskly for a few moments and once I felt like I was warm and alert I saddled up and we headed off.

We set a path down I-95 south.

Some where south of Raleigh we were moving down through the left lane approaching a car and passing one in the right lane. We caught up to the car in the left; (Malibu) then slowed up and waited for him to continue his pass on the car in the right lane. Just as he got up to the car’s blind spot, the driver of the Malibu hit his brakes very abruptly and held them. Dad and I had to check up quickly to avoid rear ending him has he went from running 75ish to around 45mph. As Dad and I were trying to avoid this situation he quickly moved into the right lane. Not having an idea what this guy was thinking, we moved past him rather quickly.

About a mile later I looked in my mirror to see a set of head lights gaining on us quickly. I called over the radio to Dad to make sure he was aware of this and as the car got closer I realized it was the Malibu again. He continued past us and got up maybe 200 feet before he slowed up and dropped back beside us and then rode in my blind spot for a while. We sped up, slowed down and did everything we could to try and shake him but he remained in my blind spot the entire time. Finally after a few miles we caught some other traffic and we got separated. Dad seems to think the guy was rather sleepy and was just following with something as he couldn’t keep a steady pace. I guess we were just north of Lumberton when the guy finally pulled off. I hope he got home safely.

Just before our exit onto 74, Dad saw a sign for a Waffle House and pulled off. What could be better than Waffle House at 2am when your 800 miles into a ride. I can’t think of much…

Now I don’t know about you, but I have never been overly impressed with the crowds that gather at a Waffle House, nor the staff. But then again after riding many miles I’m sure my father and I looked like we fit right in. However, when we got off the bikes I heard a two way radio going off in between some trees in the front lawn. It was dark over there so I couldn’t quite make it out. After we got things situated and secured on the bikes, an armed security guard walks out of the shadows there and into the parking lot. This was a first… where are we again?

Breakfast was good, a nice hot cup of coffee a couple waffles and bowl grits. Man that hit the spot. Before we left I stopped by the restroom to wash my face with some hot water and walked out the door. As we were leaving there was a rather inebriated (I hope that’s what they were) family walking into the restaurant and were raising a bit of cane. The officer was standing by our bikes and was complimenting us on them while keeping a close eye on the family.

Needless to say we got out of that area in a hurry and with that we decided to go down the road further to find another gas station. That was all fine and well, however, Dad had just gone down to his last bar of gas, which was flashing and as it turned out, that was the last fuel for 40 miles on Hwy 74. No worries though, the engineer had a plan... I had just installed a quick disconnect on the aux line leading to the main fuel tank. I had just emptied my auxiliary tank but my main tank was almost full. I was planning on emptying one of the bottles of water in Dad’s tour pack, and then taking the connector loose on the fuel line from the main tank and draining the needed fuel into the water bottle until he had enough gas to get going. Eventually we made it to Laurinburg and found a station open before the FJR started to stutter. However, this did give me an idea for a tool to keep on the bike. I am going to pick up some more of those disconnects and have one on an open ended hose so that I can pump gas out of my fuel cell to another bike if needed. Store that under the seat behind the fuel pump. At the point the Vstrom will double as a tanker!

After topping of the tanks in Laurinburg we made our way further up 74 to 485 and then to 85 in Concord, NC. Another stop in the University area and we headed home. Just like our last saddle sore, this stretch of 85 seemed to be the longest of the trip.

At 4:49am we pulled into the BP on Hwy in Lexington to get our final receipt. I was beat. It took all I had to get to that stop and if the house wasn’t just a few miles down the road, I would have slept there. In fact, I even kicked up my feet on the frame sliders and laid my head back on the fuel cell. That set up would work fine for an IBA hotel… just sayin’.

It was a good route, but a tough one to the say the least. This was the first ride we had done like this without taking the super slab the entire way. It was eye opening to see how much the two lane roads kill your rolling average/time.

Dad's trip meter for the ride.

My trip meter for the ride. At first I wasn't a fan of these gauges, but they are really growing on me.

To conclude this report I would like to add that I was not ready for this ride on many levels. And since I know I have some readers that are fellow IBA riders and some that are looking to get their first one in, I’d like close by sharing what I did wrong and ways to improve upon these mistakes. This maybe old news for some of you, but maybe it will help someone.

1.) REST! If anything, this was probably my biggest short coming for this trip. I had stayed up late every night working on the bike and then woke up at 5am every morning to get to work. I had it in my mind that maybe since I was staying up late and getting tired that I would sleep better the night before the ride which I can never seem to do. I did in fact sleep like a rock Friday but I still didn’t go to bed till around 11pm and that wasn’t enough to make up for what I was deprived of during the week.

2.) Diet. For the past 6 months I have been on a bit of a health kick. I have been bulking up and eating a lot of healthy foods several times a day in order to put on mass. With this I have been watching my sugar intake and keeping that under 100g a day. (Those sugars are mostly fruit sugars) Also, I have been eating complex carbs, lots of protein, and drinking lots of water. Due to my time working on the bike I did not get the gym each afternoon after work, in addition I started drinking coffee during work. (loaded with crème and sugar) I was eating fast food for dinner and having sodas with lunch. My diet was shot all to hell and I was feeling like crap because of it. It’s a good habit in life to monitor how much sugar you take in on a daily basis and to eat right, but this should be done for these rides as well. If you are on a healthy diet that is working for you before you set out on one of these rides, maintain it through the ride. Do not change things up as your body is used to it, it is harder for it to adjust and it will fatigue you as it adjusts to the change.

3.) HYDRATE! This really should be a no brainer, but honestly we are all guilty of it and Dad and I were on this ride. I normally wear a camelback during a ride like this so that I can continue to drink small sips of water as I ride to stay hydrated. You may not think you need it as you just sit on the bike and ride, but sitting out in the sun on the pavement will dehydrate you. In addition, when you dehydrate you begin to cramp and soreness will set in on your muscles which you are using most. On a motorcycle that is your abdominals, shoulders, neck and quads (thighs). During this trip we just carried bottled water and during our stops we either drank coffee or sodas when we ate.

4.) Mentally prepare. This is where we really blew it. Dad and I jokingly said before we left, “Its just a 1000 miles, we got this!” I can’t speak for Dad but I can say that I am guilty for under estimating this ride by thinking it was, “just a Saddle Sore” and didn’t take it too seriously. Mentally prepare yourself for the fact that the last 300-400 miles are going to be difficult and the last 100 will be the hardest. You are going to be sitting on a motorcycle for close to 24 hours and having to concentrate the entire time. It’s not easy, it never will be.

5.) Do not do this on a new bike. Unless you’re Tim Yow (I think you hold the record for SS1000’s on different bikes. I don’t know how you do that.) While the Vstrom was similar to the FZ in seating position, it was still very different. I was using muscles in ways that I didn’t have to on the FZ. I was still learning the bike and how it rode. Shifting, turning, braking, etc. That was just more effort I had to put into the ride that I didn’t need to had I done it on the FZ. Now with that being said, I don’t think I could have done it on the FZ because it was a harder bike for me to ride for longer distances and I would have frozen on the way home. (Thank you heated grips on the Vstrom)

In a nut shell, I think that is about it. It was a great ride, a very tough one and one that we almost didn’t complete had we not stepped back, took a break and then dug deep. Had it been another 100 miles longer, I don’t know that I could have completed it. But you know, Jack was a hell of a rider and from all his trip logs it seems that he never really took the easy way. So I am sure this is the way Jack would have wanted it.

Jack Shoalmire (9/30/1942-8/28/2011)