Ride Report: Blue Ridge Parkway, Oct 9-11, 2010
 

Alright, I'm going to start this thread and update it as we go. Just a place holder for now. For now, though, I'm going to eat a lovely sandwich and take a poo, then get a shower. After said shower, I will write up my report.

Here's a view from Monday morning, around 8am on the parkway:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_eJgBsPDC44M/TL...0/IMAG0180.jpg

And this is what I made when I got home, and what our breakfast SHOULD have looked like:

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_eJgBsPDC44M/TL...0/sandwich.jpg

As opposed to what breakfast did look like

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6876551_n.jpg

All my pics are on facebook, I will write something longer later cause I am tired now.

Ride the BRP....check
Camping in a redneck filled camp ground....IT'S QUIET TIME AND I AM NOT A WOODSMAN!!!
Spend a weekend making homosexual comments towards kyle....check
Fully test the capabilities of the Sena headsets on a long trip....check....badass rating
Kyle getting the most annoying songs stuck in my head....check
Term for passing is now shitville MAN!....check
Having headsets to help the follower pass in blind turns....WIN
Having derf and kyle almost hit me....check
Annoy 90% of the people on the BRP and in the GSMNP....check
Take a shower in a sink and have an old man almost catch me naked....check
Watch a FZ1 with Pilot Power 2CTs man handle a dirt forest service road....check


It was a good weekend

Trip, squirel hunter extrordinaire

just don't tell the park ranger...lol

She got pretty serious when the topic of squirel hunting came up,

As far as scenery, Virginia sucked. I don't know if I would that section again (unless it was like a moving rally) after seeing NC. NC just got better and better til you hit asheville. I could take it or leave it after asheville.

Yeh I feel pretty bad for Va now, it was pretty dumpy

:lol: sounds like I missed out.



shitville MAN huh...

Day 1, from my point of view:


As with all good trips, my ride started with planning. I had already made a checklist on Wednesday and packed everything I needed. This was new to me, as I typically just go off the top of my head. Friday is when I got the consumables. Eggs, Dry Ice, Bread. Hannah came home that night from college. She knew I was leaving the next day, so she wasn’t too disappointed when I went to bed early that night.

7:15am, Saturday, Oct 9th. My phone is making the most annoying sound I could find in the presets for the alarm. I roll out of bed and take what will be my last shower for the next three days. I feed my two dogs, Bowser and Holly, and pack my cooler on my bike. I packed everything else the night before.

I kiss the fiancé goodbye and head out on the road. Just a few miles up the interstate and I’m at Nick’s house. I make the usual loud entrance, which is quickly stopped by Nick telling me to, “Shut the hell up,” as Andrea is still asleep. In the garage, we finish the packing. Nick pulls out his headsets and asks if I have a lighter outlet on my bike. Of course, I don’t. He considers not bringing them now, but in the end we figure “what the hell, might as well.” Thank God for that. Those headsets were a lifesaver.

We depart Lenoir City and make our way through Knoxville. We ride down I-40 for a while, then we hit I-81. Our headsets are filled with meaningless banter, windnoise, and typical “guy talk.” We recollect old high school relationships and tomfoolery. We talk trash about every car we see, and try to freak out our fellow interstate travelers. The range on the FZ1 is nowhere near the GS’; only 120 miles for me on the interstate, so we stop. I don’t remember the first place we stopped, but, I do remember the second.

I really had to do number 2, so I run inside and start my business. Not 2 minutes later, some random country song comes on the radio. This doesn’t surprise me, as we are in rural Virginia. What does surprise me, however, is that the man in the stall next to me starts singing along. I tell Nick about this over Google Talk, and he tells me to join in. I would have, except I don’t listen to country.

We carry on, down the road, and eventually end up at the BRP. Sometime between where we turned off and where we needed to turn on the BRP, our headsets cut out. If you’ve ever ridden behind Nick, you know he doesn’t use turn signals, nor does he come to a slow stop. It is abrupt and without warning. Our trip was almost cut short before it began because of this. Thankfully I was able to brake without washing out the front-end (thank you Trackdays!).

We get on the BRP and take the mandatory pictures of us standing at the “Start of the Blue Ridge Parkway” sign. After this, we hop on our bikes and head down the road to the first campsite. About 10 minutes in, we start seeing what the BRP is all about: the amazing views. We pull off the road to check it out at Raven’s Roost. We walk out to the precipice in full gear, amongst the other tourist. We drew some looks, but most of the attention was focused on the view. We notice there are climbers here as well, and joke about cutting their support lines.

We carry on after the pictures. 20 something miles later, we stop, finally, at Montebello Campground: mile marker 27 on the BRP. We arrive at the site and find that Fred is nowhere to be found. The only trace of him is a decrepit tent, hastily put together, with the wrong length poles.

Nick sets up his tent and we ride our bikes to the local store. The store is definitely interesting. It has the feel of a General Store of days gone by. We get some firewood, marshmallows, and bug spray. Nick requested I get him chocolate, so I obliged since he was sharing his tent with me. The cashiers were a team of a sweet older lady with gray hair in a denim vest and a younger woman, mid-30’s, with a long blonde braid and a plaid button-up shirt. Neither of them seemed to fit in with the landscape. Perhaps transplants from another life, just trying to “get away from it all.”

We get back to the campsite and start our fire for dinner. Fred meets us, finally, and shows up with a 12-pack of Yuengling and a 3-man tent. We decide, after much argument, that I will share the tent with Fred as his tent is bigger than Nick’s. We change out of our riding gear and start dinner: Chili Dogs. We filled the Dutch oven with water and cooking oil, threw the Hebrew National hot dogs in, and put the lid on. Nick opened the chili can and set it on the grate above our fire. 10 minutes later we were feasting on the best chilidogs I’ve had in my life.

After dinner, Nick took a shower. Fred and I shot the shit and roasted marshmallows. After Nick got back, I decided to take a shower. When I got in, I was alone. After I finished my shower, which was more of just a rinse since I had no soap or shampoo, I hear this voice , “Are you done?!” I think it’s Fred and I respond “yeah.” The raspy voice then questions “Is there any hot water?” I now know it isn’t Fred and become very short. I respond with a simple, “Yes.” The stranger replies: “Oh good, cause I’ve been in these places where there is no hot water!” I do not reply.

I grab my towel, dry off, and put on my clothes in the stall. I walk over to the mirror to dry my hair and make it somewhat presentable. The stranger walks out of the stall from taking a dump, wearing no pants, no shoes, only a t-shirt, and walks right into the shower. I found this strange, to say the least.

I return to camp and know that I have to sleep well tonight, so I take a couple Benadryl and wash it down with a beer. We talk some more, and are interrupted by a dog running through our camp site. This is shortly followed by a somewhat distant female voice saying “I swear, your only job was to was to watch her! You can’t even do that right! Go find her!”

A man appears shortly and I say, “Your dog is down there,” pointing in the general direction of the dog’s path. Later, the same man asks if we have any extra “fire starters.” I tell him that we used pine needles, which are abundant all around our campsites. He replies with “Well, good God, I’m not a woodsman!” I am instantly disappointed with his manliness. We later see, what I presume to be, his son spraying some kind of flammable aerosol on their fire and saying “I GOT IT STARTED!” Way to go kid.

After this excitement, I go to bed. I toss and turn all night, and my face is cold throughout the night. I may have gotten 6 hours of sleep, but I am constantly woken up by the campsite noises. I wake up the next morning with back pain and a headache.

thats a lot of writing... moar pitchers

i paint pictures with words

I wrote this for KLR650.net

I ran the BRP this past weekend with some buddies from TN. I superslabbed it to the begining of the BRP to get a campsite, they came up 81 from knoxville to meet me saturday night, the plan was to camp both nights, ride 1/2 down the parkway into NC, and split up this morning, with them finishing the ride south to Deals Gap and follow 129 home, and me taking 81, 64, and 95 back up to MD.

I showed at the campsite a few hours before them so after setting up camp and finding myself with a tent taht was in really bad shape (should have checked that) I ran out to grab a 12 pack of beer and a new tent. i was told walmart was just a few minutes up the road, a few minutes turned into an hour in each direction, but there were some cool tight twisties that lead to it, and some great views.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3397997_n.jpg

I show up and they are there, set up and fire started

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6522777_n.jpg

The next morning we made some great bacon, and used the same pot to cook the eggs, which wound up tasting like bacon

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6876551_n.jpg

Every few miles on the BRP is a scenic overlook, we didnt stop at too many of them, but some were just too cool to pass up

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._4105127_n.jpg

Eventually we came to a sign for the Natural Bridge which was supposed to be some big draw that has billboards plastering 81 both directions. Yeh it turned out to be a big mistake, although the cowboy riding the velociraptor out front almost made it worth the detour (me and Kyle, the board we know each other from is pretty childish and it carries over to real life)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3252548_n.jpg

Getting back to the BRP took us through an 8 mile single track two way dirt road with switchbacks up the mountain. The GS and the KLR had no problem, but the FZ1 really wasn't meant for it.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7237801_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...7_325893_n.jpg

Continued down the BRP at a pretty good clip, pretty much maintaining a 60mph average except for some heavy patches of cars which we blew past at each opportunity. The GS and FZ1 had no problem powering past 5 or 6 cars but I really had to plan my passes with the seriously underpowered thumper, times like that I wish I was on my CBR. Thank god for headset communications, the term for passing is now shitville MAN! I watched a squirel try and kill itself with the GS, it ran right up to the back wheel, stopped then made a mad dash in front of the FZ1, neither of them stopped or swerved which must have really spooked the squirel pretty bad because we didnt see another one the rest of the trip.

Stopped for gas and an ass break after 100 miles. VA really has some dumpy places, in the 15 minutes we were there a dozen or so folks bought a case of naddy ice, the nastiest beer ever

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5591949_n.jpg


Stopped and set up camp at Doughton Park, which i don't recommend, no showers or hot water, and expensive wood, other than that, its a normal primitive camp ground. There is a campground 8 miles down the road that has facilities and $5 for all the wood you can carry, which is enough to load down 2 bikes. They also sell beer there, and mustard.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._5908088_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3738941_n.jpg

FIRE!

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7984950_n.jpg

Just need to watch out for those axe wielding KLR riders who are jealous of the passing power of the GS. Damn you BMW!!!

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...7_720667_n.jpg

Woke up the next morning, skipped breakfast after the previous morning escapades and some big miles we all needed to do. Rode to the next overlook where we split up.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6004955_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1504106_n.jpg

and trip humping my bike again

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7862157_n.jpg

After they split away from em I shot back up the BRP into VA, took a good picture of myself with the bike at an overlook, and one at the NC/VA to add to my state line photo collection.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6609040_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-...1_530203_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6192620_n.jpg

After that I just shot on the highway and bought some bad gas that almost left me stranded on the side of the road, changed out the spark plug and rebuilt the petcock on the side of the road before I realized the gas was a very thick shade of brown. Dumped the fuel and filled up with some fresh stuff and the bike ran fine for the next 130 miles until I rolled back into my garage.

I wouldn't say the FZ1 had a problem on the gravel road road... just the tires.

Agreed

yes you do...

Nice writeups...looks like you boys had fun.

Derf...u is a tad hanzy. lol

Looks like a good time.

You guys that rode it might wanna check this out:

http://brpfoundation.org/end-to-end/

you asked me this last night and I sent it to you. We camped at Montebello Campground the first night and Doughton Park the second.

I got to add that the woodsman decided to have a conversation with his wife and two people who showed up at like 1am so loud the entire campsite heard them. They were literally 3 feet from my tent when they did this too. The two women in the group had the most annoying laughs. After about 2 mins of this, some redneck somewhere far away in the campground yells out "WHAT PART OF IT'S QUIET TIME DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND!" Fred didn't tell us til the next morning, but you sign something saying you will be quiet after like 10 or 11 when you check in. Well they spend 5 minutes debating if he is talking to them in hushed voices and then proceed with their conversation about bullshit. After about 15 minutes of this I am getting pissed and about to yell something at them when the same redneck makes sure they understand his point by yelling at them again. They thank god decide to go to bed. About 3am, someone lost a dog that was going ape shit and it ran by my tent and they chased them through the campground yelling "shhhhhh!" At about 4 am, some kid decided it would be a good time to start screaming and it took awhile to shut the little bastard up. At about 5-6, some people started waking up, so I didn't get much sleep. I am a light sleeper.

The second night was worse though, it was really windy that night and we slept under trees. The leaves/acorns were falling all night and a big branch landed right on top my tent and scared the ever living shit out of me.

I feel like garbage today. Sorry.

Looks like a great time.

this is EXACTLY why I like primitive camping in random locations not at camp grounds... when I want sleep... I want SLEEP!

though KOA's are very good about keeping people quiet

That's awesome, submitted my application.

I fucking hate campgrounds. After a miserable night at one near the Ocoee, I swore I would never do that again. It was almost the exact same as Trip's version. Only mine had drunken college kids complete with fights and all

Here is my report:

I made a plan to do the BRP over the Columbus Day Holiday weekend and camp along the way. All 469 miles from Waynesboro, VA to Cherokee, NC. I needed to do this as a test trip for my 2011 California Adventure. I enlisted two friends to come along with me. One would ride with me from Knoxville and do the whole trip and another from Maryland would meet us at the first campground and ride halfway with us and then go home.

Me and Kyle left from Lenoir City early on 10-9 and traveled up Interstate 75 to 81. We had to make a bunch more stops than needed for me because the FZ1 Kyle was riding was far more limited in range. Here is us stopped in Wytheville, VA because the FZ1 needed gas and it's rider had to poop.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/wytheville.jpg

All that Virginia interstate riding was terrible, luckily we were using the Sena SMX 10 headsets that I purchased and had a good time entertaining ourselves with the usual male banter and berating cagers we passed. We finally made it to I-64 and into Waynesboro and finally the start of our real trip, the BRP.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/brpstart.jpg

As you can see I was super excited to be here.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/mebrpstart.jpg

It started out with some sweepers and it was much more enjoyable than the stupid interstate, we had a good time making fun of a lot of the signs along the way, the BRP has some hilarious names for places and signs for our immature brains. We got our first real treat of scenery and ravens roost not far from the start. So we stopped and got a few "oh pretty pics."

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/ravenbikes.jpg

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/ravensroost.jpg

Don't want to fall off of it. It might hurt.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/ravendown.jpg

Well we get back on the bikes and make our way to MM 27 and down the road to Montebello Campground where we will spend the first night.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/montebello.jpg

Yes, it is that full and yes it was loud all night.

It was nice to be under trees instead of being in a hotel though.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/treesmonte.jpg

We decided to hold a rave for all the rednecks.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/glowstick.jpg

It was a loud night though. We had our neighbors start having a domestic dispute with the woman yelling at the man and then the man telling us it's always his fault. They were a lot of fun. He didn't know how to start a campfire and so he asked us and we told him to use pine needles and twigs as kindling and he promptly told us "he is not a woodsman." They also started having a long conversation at 1AM, 3 feet from my tent. Luckily a fellow redneck somewhere in the campground screamed at them a few times telling them "WHAT PART OF QUIET TIME DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!" til they went to sleep. They lost their dog at 3AM and chased it through my tent area too. They were great people. There was also kids screaming for no reason all night. I do not recommend this campground. Only positive I got to say is I got a hot shower this night, because the food sure did suck.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/eggs.jpg

Yeah, we made eggs in the same dutch oven we burnt some bacon in. They look nasty, but weren't too bad.

We took off out of that redneck nightmare early on 10-10 and were treated to this view not far down the BRP.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/morning1010.jpg

It all started blending together after awhile though.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/view1010.jpg

We saw a sign for the natural bridge (we were bombarded with this all the way up interstate 81) and thought we would check it out. There was a nice twisty asphalt road to the natural bridge, so it wasn't too bad of a detour. We found this guy waiting on us when we got there, he looked like he meant business.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/raptorboy.jpg

We didn't go to the natural bridge, it cost money and we were not interested after seeing the prices and the line to get in.

On the way back to the brp, I tried to take a different route to get back on, but it led right into a gravel road. It was a great little surprise find that was twisty and fun.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/gravel.jpg

Kyle on the FZ1 with PP 2CTs was not amused.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/fz1gravel.jpg

We got back on the BRP and it sort of leveled out and was kinda boring Virgina roads and we didn't really stop much or see anything great in this lower section of Virginia. So I don't really have pics of it. Eventually the FZ1 needed gas again, so we made a little pitstop in Floyd, VA.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/floydva.jpg

We stopped in the dumpy section, apparently there was a much nicer part if we would of kept going a little bit as we found out on the way back to the BRP.

Eventually we made it into North Carolina and at our stop for the night, Doughton Park.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/doughtonpark.jpg

We camped under some trees, which ended up being stupid because leaves, acorns, massive branches fell on my tent the entire night and I was once again forced to go without much sleep.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/doughtoncamp.jpg

It was nice and secluded at night though, we scanvenged for brush.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/doughtonatnight.jpg

Note: don't bring jealous KLR riders with you, as this one tried to attack me on this night.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/klrrider.jpg

This campsite was really awesome though, only thing they didn't have that I missed was a shower. I tried to take a shower in the sink of the restroom, but the only other dude in the campsite decided to walk into the bathroom as I was almost naked. It was awkward. My friends saw him coming and knew what I was doing, but thought it would be more hilarious if they let him find me naked instead of warning me. Great friends...

We took off from Doughton on 10-11 and headed to Bluff Mountain overlook just 2 miles down the road.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/bluffmtn.jpg

It was worth the stop.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/morning1011.jpg

We said goodbye to Fred, the KLR rider, here as he had to make his way back to Maryland. Sucks he couldn't end to end it with us.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. It was filled with lots of views and beautiful fall colors, here is a small collection of pics I took from that day.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/treecolors1011.jpg

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/more1011.jpg

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/more1011b.jpg

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/more1011c.jpg

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/more1011d.jpg

I didn't any great shots of grandfather mountain or craggly gardens, but those were two of my favorite spots of the whole trip. We were being really time concious on this day, because we piddled around too much the day before and it took us a lot longer to do half of the BRP than we thought. So we limited our stops on this day to make sure we got home at a decent time. I really want to do the VA/NC border to Asheville section again, taking more time to stop and enjoy the view. This was the best section of the entire trip.

Here is my last shot of the trip. One of the many tunnels you pass through on the way into Cherokee.

http://www.twowheelfix.com/brp/tunnel.jpg

It was disappointing to not find a "here ends the BRP" sign to take a final pic, but oh well.

We went into Cherokee to fill up our gas tanks and then made our way across 441 in the GSMNP and then on Little River Rd into Townsend and finally back 321 into Lenoir City. It was a great trip and I am glad to officially be a BRP end to ender. shitville MAN!

Whats scarier than just riding with Trip?

Riding with Trip while he's taking photos. :tremble:

Nice ride report. I was up at Montebello that weekend off Rt 56 with my niece. only stopped for a few minutes and had to haul ass back to the east coast.

I have done the entire VA section of the BRP down and back up in a weekend. Nice but boring as crap in the valleys and some spots that make you wanna drive off a cliff.

Watch out for the radar rangers. speeding ticket on the parkway is a federal ticket.

Cool pics. I've been up and down parts of the BRP many times but never end to end...kudos for that as well as camping it all the way.

Trip,

This is what Bears look like when they are hungry and looking to eat people camping in yellowstone park.


http://cache.gawker.com/assets/image...bear_bison.jpg

This is what they look like in Japan when they are hungry.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ky...1saxo1_400.jpg

Great pics boys... sounds like fun.

Awesome Thread...Something I'd like to do in the near future!

Your first time on the BRP and you guys live only like an hour from it?

No they've ridden it before... just not end to end.

I've only done a short section by Cherokee many many years ago in a car. Never past Asheville. I've always stayed away on a motorcycle because there are better roads that are much less patroled and have less tourists.

Didnt see any cops there the one day, but when i left you and went back north, I saw 2 cops in 20 miles, one of them followed me right to the exit for the highway.

I saw several cops, I slowed us down when we came across them. We also got some good luck and caught cars just as we went by them. A lot of them were jeep cherokee park rangers.

damn didnt even see them, the two I saw were crown vics