When we visited with my mom on Tuesday, one of the first things she asked me was if I wanted to go for a ride. She recently purchased a Honda Shadow 1300cc for her girlfriend and so she has TWO bikes under the carport. It didn’t take much convincing. The next day I was at Goodwill purchasing a pair of black denim pants for $2. Riding pants were the only thing I forgot in my haste.
I spent Wednesday night on Google Maps coming up with a good route. My mom does a lot of riding in the area but could not remember being on the Blue Ridge Parkway since maybe back in the 70’s when her and my dad were together. So the BRP was my goal. See the route details below. We would take the back way to Gatlinburg (via Cosby) and then take 441 into Cherokee, NC. Get on the BRP there in Cherokee (where it starts, by the way). Take the BRP for maybe 60 miles or so, then get off before Asheville and head north. Through Canton, then Hot Springs, then back to her home in White Pine, TN. See route details below. (See the Google map HERE.)
We left my mom’s place at around 9:30am. That was a bit of a scare. I had never ridden this behemoth bike before. My mom’s first instruction was to ride the bike out of the carport, uphill through about 40 yards of wet grass, and then out into the gravel driveway. Ugh! But….I watched my mom do it with no trouble and I executed the same bad idea as effortlessly as she had.
The first few stops were pretty standard stuff. Nice sunny weather and pretty easy riding. The road from Gatlinburg to Cherokee (441) is pretty busy, but it’s still a very winding, twisty road with plenty of vistas. It sprinkled on us a few times on the way to Cherokee, but we didn’t get soaked.
It was well after noon by the time we got on the BRP and we had only gone maybe 85 miles by that point. We weren’t setting a blistering pace. We were taking plenty of breaks and just enjoying the ride. My mom smokes like a chimney, so she never complains if I stop. See below a pic of my mom at the very start of the BRP in Cherokee, NC.
Once we were on the BRP, I was in heaven. That big heavy V-twin is quite a different ride from the smooth power delivery of an inline four. The Shadow I was riding has handlebars that sort of swoop back like the old vintage bikes, so it was easy to imagine I was riding an old Indian. We sputtered along between 35mph and 45mph most of the time. And on a bike like that, it’s easy to get into an enjoyable rhythm and savor the curves even at that slow speed. It was quite a leap from the start of the day when I was utterly flummoxed as to how one goes about riding a bike with no tach.
We ran through a decent amount of rain on the BRP and that’s where I eventually got soaked. But we also had some sun and I took some great pics of us, the bikes, and the view.
Pounding Mill Overlook is very close to where we had planned to exit the BRP. We stopped there and took shelter from the rain under an overhanging rock. At that point, you could see a very ominous “cloud” tip toeing around the next corner from where we were parked. All of the bikers there, including a couple of squids in ripped blue jeans were eyeing the cloud and debating on just turning and heading back the way they came. But my mom and I suited up and rode on…..heading right for the “cloud”.
As soon as we rounded the corner, we were in the “cloud” and I was assessing visibility. I looked back and all I could see was my mom’s headlight. That fog lasted maybe a mile at most. In another couple of miles we were exiting the parkway onto 276 and heading north toward Canton. However, at that point, we were in a heavy, steady rain. And as most of us well know, all roads leading to and from the BRP are typically steep since the BRP runs along the ridge of the mountains. So now we were descending on 276 in heavy rain. I saw a yellow speed advisory sign that read “15mph / Next 4 Miles”. I dropped it into first gear and we crept down the mountain. I kept an eye on my mirror and could see a car behind my mom the whole way down. With rain too heavy for me to see through my visor, I raised my shield and just drank in the rain. I was hyper focused on not wrecking this big Shadow and then it dawned on me that my Mom was behind me doing the exact same thing. She’s got 20 plus years on me. I know she’s in her early sixties, she wears glasses, she surely can’t be as strong as she once was, and here she is riding this cruiser down a mountain in heavy rain. When it finally leveled out, we pulled over and I told my mom she had earned her merit badge. We were both soaked to the core, but both very relieved to have made it down in one piece.
We made our way toward Canton, NC. We merged onto 215 at some point. We fueled up in Canton. (I don’t go on and on about all of these roads, but they were ALL good. Western North Carolina is replete with great riding.) At Canton, I needed to be on the lookout for a small side road that would allow us to wind our way over to 209 and into Hot Springs. I kept looking for this Thickety Road that I had found on Google Maps. Finding Thickety would keep us from having to resort to interstate travel. Luck was with me and I found the road. It took us right over Interstate 40 and I gave a middle finger salute to the interstate traffic as we crossed overhead. Thickety took us to Crabtree Mountain Road. Ah…….Crabtree Mountain Road…..a meandering little road on the Google Maps that gave no hint at the adventure it held in store for us. Crabtree Mountain Road was just supposed to be a back roads route for us to get to 209 (a GREAT road) and then into Hot Springs. It wound up being a generous reward for having ridden in so much rain a half hour earlier. With almost no warning, the road turned into steep switchbacks, the goat path of all goat paths leading to the top of the mountain in the absolute shortest distance possible. The inside corners were scraped by cars’ undercarriages……as we have all seen before. It was probably only two or three miles of road, but it was a first-gear climb that required courage, finesse, and a smile. It was very much like Mount Judea in Arkansas, but it went on for longer. When I finally crested the summit, I HAD to pull over and get my mom’s reaction. She went on and on like it had scared the shit out of her, and I do believe it did, but it was also something she seemed to enjoy. Quite an adventure. All I kept thinking and repeating to myself was that the “road had redeemed itself.” Riding in the rain earlier had sucked, but climbing this mountain goat path in the warm sun of late afternoon had been the reward.
We eventually got back on the bikes and made our way down the other side of Crabtree Mountain Road. Luckily the other side wasn’t quite as steep and we were able to safely control our descent. At the junction of 209, we tried to take Max Patch Road (107) over into TN instead of taking 209 (a road that we have both been on previously). But Max Patch turned to gravel and we had to double back about 5 miles. We (the Hoolie Crew) have all been on 209. It goes over into Hot Springs where a lot of Appalachian Trail through hikers stop for respite. 209 is a great road. I think some people in the area call it the Snake or the Rattle Snake, or the Rattler, or something like that. My mom and I stopped there in Hot Springs and ate dinner at a little diner she remembered was there. See below a picture of how my hands were inked blue from a day of riding with wet gloves and a through hiker who had been eating at the diner.
We left Hot Springs at about 8:30pm. As we made our way back home, we crossed over the French Broad River as the sun was setting. A beautiful view to end the day. We rode along the river most of the 25 miles back to Newport. We finally returned home at around 9:30pm. 12 hours on the road. 257 miles on the trip meter. One hell of a great day of riding.
