CC20 - Day 21

My skill at finding donkey trails came forward again ... my routing led me over some very nice backroads again, some of them unpaved, for whatever reason. 

Some miles unpaved roads, no problems

And with donkey trail, I mean donkey trail:

Donkeys along the backroads

I saw donkeys multiple times today, stopped for these ... they were a bit careful at first, but then came closer and let me scratch their little ears. 

Nice backroads

At some point I ended up on Blue Ridge Parkway again, but just a few miles later it was close and I had to switch to a detour. Since I didn't know for how far the Parkway was closed, I decided to just take the fastest route to the hotel I had booked. Wasn't an issue, since I had already done about 3/4 of the way today.

Day 21 Route

CC20 - Day 20

I've been on the road for nearly three weeks now. About a week ago I made an appointment with Eurosport in Asheville to get a new rear tire – under the assumption that I'd ride roughly about as much as I had planned. Reality got in the way and I rode about 800 miles less than I had planned. Still, I kept the appointment, wasting some rubber on the rear tire, but since it will definitely not survive a ride back home, I needed a new tire anyways. 

The rear tire I had on for the last 8100km / 5000 miles still looked good and I felt slightly sad to replace it today. 

Rear tire after 5000 miles

At least the tire shows that I found a good mix of curvy roads while still making quite some distance over the last 19 days. There just less than half a millimeter tread left to the wear markers in the center, a bit more on the sides. Not too shabby, the tire would have lasted the distance I was actually planning to ride on it, just around 6000 miles.

The front is still good:

Front tire after 5000 miles

I hope the front will last another 4000 miles which should get me comfortably back home.

The riding today was great. It was cold most of the day, it was under 10C/50F for around two thirds of my ride. The heated jacket was really worth it! It kept me warm and comfortable, although I did have cold fingers. 

The routing led me down some weird roads though:

Weird routing ...

I had selected "paved roads only" for the routing and that didn't work out ... ;-) I had to turn around since the "road" was closed a little farther in.

Near US 421 "The Snake"

US 421, nicknamed "The Snake" is a wonderful motorcycle road. Curvy, not too tight, not too fast. It has a rather low speed limit which I adhered to, of course, ... cough ... mostly. 

After the one day the new rear tire is scrubbed in:

Rear after about 200 miles

That's one reason why I love the Continental tires, they stick from the first moment on without any issues. 

The route looks a little weird – I rode "The Snake" first South East and then decided it was so good, much better than the rest of the loop I had planned, I rode it back North West. It was a lot of fun ... I liked it more than "Tail of the Dragon" since there was nearly no traffic here and I also liked it much more than the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is also much busier. the side roads are where the fun is, as it is so often.

Route Day 20 (Click for real map)

CC20 - Day 19

Today was an "off-bike" day. Spent the day walking through Asheville, NC. It's a really nice city, I like it here. No photos today since I took the film camera to have some old school fun. 

Tomorrow, I have an appointment at Eurosport Asheville to get a new rear tire. After that I'll slowly start making my way North. Will be in Alexandria, VA, from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning, after that my way home starts.

CC20 - Day 17 Photos (Part 2)

CC20 - Day 18

Since my ears are still giving me some trouble with the ear plugs, I'm riding shorter days and take more breaks. I need to get this settled before I start my journey back to California. I might waste some of the rear tire tread, since I had the appointment planned for about 1000 miles more, but it is what it is now. I'm better off riding less and getting better. 

Regarding the ear plugs, I'm switching back and forth between NoNoise re-usable plugs and Howard Leight Max Foam plugs, both have their advantages and downsides, although I think I have actually less issues with the re-usable ones right now.

Today I rode from Knoxville, Tennessee to Asheville, North Carolina via Little River Gorge and Route 441 as well as a short part of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Again, some of the roads were very busy, Little River Gorge was pretty much one continuous traffic jam ... It got better on 441 and even Blue Ridge Parkway was much better. So far, I can only say the roads here are great, but riding them is a lot less fun than it could be. Great nature, but it would be better enjoyed from something inherently boring ... 

Along Blue Ridge Parkway

So far, so good. 

Tomorrow I'm thinking of taking a closer look at Asheville itself. Basically take an Uber or Lyft ride into town and walk around a bit with a camera. So, likely no riding tomorrow.

Route from today:

Day 18 Route

CC20 - Day 17: Tail of the Dragon Photos (Part 1)

Photos from 129slayers.com

CC20 - Day 17

One of the bucket list items done:

Tail of the Dragon

I rode the "Tail of the Dragon" – a section of US 129 just East of Knoxville, TN. It's a really fun road to ride, with 318 curves in 11 miles. It would have been really awesome with less traffic though. There were some cars, but these generally pulled to the side when a motorcycle approached from the rear, the "bigger" hurdle were other motorcycles, namely big touring bikes from Harley Davidson, sometimes in groups of 5 to 8 bikes. A single bike is easy to pass, the groups have been rather annoying since they were really slow and didn't pull over because they were not aware of someone following the last one in the group (and probably didn't realize how impressively slow they were). 

On the other hand, these guys are tremendously skilled at slow speed cornering, I was nearly falling over trying to go the same speed through some of the turns. I stopped a few times to let them get ahead, but in the end they were so slow, it took only a dozen curves or so to catch up again. One of the sections I rode twice because I really liked the left/right changes and I had one of these groups in front of me the first time.

But anyways, it was fun, but not something I'm going to repeat, the road is nice, but not nice enough to deal with the other traffic. 

At the "Killboy" store, a photographer selling shots
from riders on the Dragon

 

I got some stickers, and that was it.

Great Smoky Mountains

Since I'm staying for two nights in the same hotel in Knoxville, I took the case off and put the bike into "hooligan mode" for today – with the master hooligan still on board:

Side Cases off

The Hooligan

It's really a beautiful area. I continued on "Moonshiners 28", a faster, less tight road and onto Cherohala Skyway, another road that is less tight and asks for faster speeds to be fun. There was a lot less traffic on these two roads and so I definitely had some fun there.

Along Cherohala Skyway, near Tellico Beach

It was a great ride today.

Click the image to go to the real map

CC20 - Day 16

Since it was raining most of the ride today, I didn't take any photos. Also, because of my ear issues, I've only done a short hop to Knoxville, TN. 

The rain was light, but pretty much during the whole ride. Sometimes just some drops, sometimes a slight shower. Wasn't too bad though. The only annoying thing was drinking. My drinking tube is in the tank bag and that was under the rain cover ... so, only during stops today. No big deal, the whole ride today was only three hours.

Trying something new today with the map:

CC20 - Day 15

No riding today. Had to let my ears recover from continuous ear plug use. Tomorrow I'll ride to Knoxville. If I like the hotel I booked there, I'll extend the stay there for a few days and will do day trips.

CC20 - Day 14

From Cincinnati, OH to London, KY – it was a lot of fun today. I picked a route that brought me through some beautiful countryside, for me reminiscent of middle European landscapes – lush, green, hilly, rich colors and great riding. 

I was lucky, that the weather held. For a while it looked like it would be raining, but it didn't – it cleared up a bit and the weather was great for riding. 

At some point I was heading into a very promising county:

It didn't hold that promise though ... ;-)

As I was riding one of the many single lane roads, I came upon this very peaceful cemetery in the middle of the forest.

The route took me on a lot of single lane backroads, some turned to hardpacked dirt and gravel for a few miles, it was fine though, no deep gravel or such, which I try to avoid when I'm so heavily packed and have the big cases on. 

Since I had a rather complicated route today, I wanted to try something new and to not just provide a screenshot, but a way to see the real map. Let me know if there are problems with it.

First the screenshot:

And then the actual map: 

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hWf-BNIZ2cmpobNKn7FxJbI5IOXsYAKP&usp=sharing

Tomorrow is undecided yet, I might have to stay here in London, KY, since my right ear canal has become quite tender and is swollen. I'm not used to wearing ear plugs for so many hours a day. If this isn't significantly better tomorrow, I'll stay here another day and see whether it gets better.