"Hey, next week I'm going with 4 of my friends to Tennessee and North Carolina, will hit the tail of the dragon too!" This is how my friend started his conversation with me. I'm perplexed, envious, curious a mixed bag of emotions, I know it's the second long trip they took this year and for the first one I was still on the waiting list for the Scout. "We're leaving next Sunday at 4 am!" are the next words I hear before I even had a reply.
"Hum, sounds nice, this is something that I always wanted to do comes out of my mouth, but I'm still weary, I know I only have about 850 miles on my Indian and the last long trip I took was a few years back.
"By the way, we're gonna camp out!" says my friend. Crap, I don't have a tent goes through my mind. Maybe I can come with you guys, barely comes out of my mouth because I know, Holy Shit how totally unprepared I am for this type of trip. I had a week to perform some medicine man miracle like pulling a complete set of gear I needed for this trip. I go home and start doing a little inventory: Indian leather jacket, checked! Everything else is still missing in action. A little short search (two hours later) reveals that Revzilla and CycleGear, Dick's sporting goods and of course my friendly neighborhood Indian Motorcycle dealer have absolutely everything I thought I was gonna need for this trip: base layers, cold weather gloves, a tent, luggage rack, sleeping bag, boots, head warmers, a waterproof bag, winter riding pants and other goodies. I realized how much unprepared I was for doing some serious motorcycling. After all, jeans and summer gloves with cutouts were not gonna cut it so I started shopping. Now guys I'm a grown ass man, with a family and kids, I did something I wasn't very proud about, I didn't tell anybody about my plans to go 4 days on a wild turkey shoot in Tennessee. I went to work like I normally do, on Friday before the D day I was in Boston Ma without a load going back home. Did I tell you I drive a semi for entertainment? My dispatcher pulled a load out of the magic hat and Saturday at noon I was I finishing latest shoppings on my list. For those who don't drive a truck it involved driving 17 hours with a 10 hour break. By now most of you are gone because I wasted 5 minutes of your time and said nothing about the tail of the dragon.
Sunday morning 4 am I'm parked in front of my friends house, 5 other guys, six bikes are ready for some action. Now, I don't discriminate when it comes to the bikes I ride with, there were selected company: bmw gs1200r, 2 busas, Suzuki v-strom and a Honda magna colorful group indeed. It's 42 degrees and I'm cold as hell. We have 500 miles to do to Corbin Ky. It only took us 11 hours and a million stops. Every hours or every 70 miles or so we had to stop for fuel, bathroom break, coffee, bathroom and coffee together, eat, every possible reason you might think of, we stopped for. Nobody wanted to admit they broke their hands (the two busa guys), ass got complete numb (me) or little tank on a big bike (the Honda guy) no pun intended. It's fun, it's amazing I'm doing it, I like it, I love it, everything goes through my head on the Scout. A big semi is wondering around a bit in my lane, don't crash, I scream to myself. I haven't felt this camaraderie this feeling of belonging, of focus, of excitement in a while. Finally, we get to Corbin Kentucky and after fueling the bikes one more time, our next stopped is Walmart. The steaks we were talking and fantasizing about all day have to come from somewhere, don't you think?
My friend tells me we have no reservation for the camp site, so, a short conversation over and a 10 miles ride we are finally at the camping site. Watch out steaks, I don't think you'll survive the night!
There is nothing more raw, more untarnished more real than this, hitting the road with your riding buddies, camping, eating steaks from Walmart and drinking homemade wine after 500 miles on a saddle. Tomorrow I will come back with The Dragon details, I promise!
"Hum, sounds nice, this is something that I always wanted to do comes out of my mouth, but I'm still weary, I know I only have about 850 miles on my Indian and the last long trip I took was a few years back.
"By the way, we're gonna camp out!" says my friend. Crap, I don't have a tent goes through my mind. Maybe I can come with you guys, barely comes out of my mouth because I know, Holy Shit how totally unprepared I am for this type of trip. I had a week to perform some medicine man miracle like pulling a complete set of gear I needed for this trip. I go home and start doing a little inventory: Indian leather jacket, checked! Everything else is still missing in action. A little short search (two hours later) reveals that Revzilla and CycleGear, Dick's sporting goods and of course my friendly neighborhood Indian Motorcycle dealer have absolutely everything I thought I was gonna need for this trip: base layers, cold weather gloves, a tent, luggage rack, sleeping bag, boots, head warmers, a waterproof bag, winter riding pants and other goodies. I realized how much unprepared I was for doing some serious motorcycling. After all, jeans and summer gloves with cutouts were not gonna cut it so I started shopping. Now guys I'm a grown ass man, with a family and kids, I did something I wasn't very proud about, I didn't tell anybody about my plans to go 4 days on a wild turkey shoot in Tennessee. I went to work like I normally do, on Friday before the D day I was in Boston Ma without a load going back home. Did I tell you I drive a semi for entertainment? My dispatcher pulled a load out of the magic hat and Saturday at noon I was I finishing latest shoppings on my list. For those who don't drive a truck it involved driving 17 hours with a 10 hour break. By now most of you are gone because I wasted 5 minutes of your time and said nothing about the tail of the dragon.
Sunday morning 4 am I'm parked in front of my friends house, 5 other guys, six bikes are ready for some action. Now, I don't discriminate when it comes to the bikes I ride with, there were selected company: bmw gs1200r, 2 busas, Suzuki v-strom and a Honda magna colorful group indeed. It's 42 degrees and I'm cold as hell. We have 500 miles to do to Corbin Ky. It only took us 11 hours and a million stops. Every hours or every 70 miles or so we had to stop for fuel, bathroom break, coffee, bathroom and coffee together, eat, every possible reason you might think of, we stopped for. Nobody wanted to admit they broke their hands (the two busa guys), ass got complete numb (me) or little tank on a big bike (the Honda guy) no pun intended. It's fun, it's amazing I'm doing it, I like it, I love it, everything goes through my head on the Scout. A big semi is wondering around a bit in my lane, don't crash, I scream to myself. I haven't felt this camaraderie this feeling of belonging, of focus, of excitement in a while. Finally, we get to Corbin Kentucky and after fueling the bikes one more time, our next stopped is Walmart. The steaks we were talking and fantasizing about all day have to come from somewhere, don't you think?
My friend tells me we have no reservation for the camp site, so, a short conversation over and a 10 miles ride we are finally at the camping site. Watch out steaks, I don't think you'll survive the night!
There is nothing more raw, more untarnished more real than this, hitting the road with your riding buddies, camping, eating steaks from Walmart and drinking homemade wine after 500 miles on a saddle. Tomorrow I will come back with The Dragon details, I promise!