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- Week 2022 "Beat the Heat" scooter rally

klaviator

Scooter Trash
Joined
Feb 8, 2022
Member Number
431
Posts
3,223
Location
Alabama
Back in 2019 I set up a few says of scooter riding in Maggie Valley, NC. I called to the "Beat the Heat" Scooter ride because I had noticed from watching weather forecasts that Maggie Valley was so much cooler than just about anywhere else in the southeast. Highs were normally in the 70 or low 80s in July and August. I also knew from experience that Maggie Valley was surrounded by some of the best riding in the country. We had 10 riders for that event and I decided to make it an annual event. We had around 30 people attend in 2020 and 2021. For 2022 I decided to call it a rally even though it was not a typical rally. There were no T shirts, stickers or handouts to give the people who attended. This was more a gathering of friends and riding some of the twistiest paved roads in the country.

2022 was the 4rth annual "Beat the Heat" event and looked to be the biggest yet. High temperatures for the week were expected to be between 73 and 80 degrees while much of the country was sweltering in 90+ degree heat.

This is my story of this event:

July 30, 2022.

4 AM

After over half a year of planning and a year of anticipation I woke up early knowing I would soon be on my way to the 4th annual Maggie Valley, "Beat the Heat" Scooter rally. Yes it was early but there was no way I would be able to go back to sleep so I got up, ate breakfast, finished loading my truck and loaded my ADV150 into the back. I was on my way by around 5:15
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Traffic was light and the drive uneventful. I arrived at the AHoliday motel before 1 and I wasn't the first one there. The room I would be sharing with Steve was ready and Steve had already moved in. We got one of the large rooms which was actually 2 separate bedrooms sharing a Bathroom, Refrigerator and microwave.

I Offloaded and then hung out watching as more people showed up.

Jim came down from Virginia with his new Vespa HPE.

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Unfortunately when he removed the Bar Harness he discovered it had pulled the starter switch right out of it's housing and he was afraid he might miss the week of riding. Fortunately one of the attendees was a master mechanic and was able to fix it. it would not be the last bike he fixed during the week.

This is John who left Fort Worth at 4PM on Saturday and rode his XMax through the night to arrive here at around 1. I think he rode close to 1000 miles to get here. Now that's hard Core.......or maybe just crazy
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Rich broke 5 ribs a couple of weeks ago dual sporting here near Maggie Valley. No riding for 6-8 weeks while his ribs healed
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He planned on coming up in his truck and at least socializing. Rich is one of the few people who have attended a 4 of these events.

I guess that's better than sitting around at home but it would suck not being able to ride.

I don't know what's more hard core, John riding through the night from Ft Worth to get here or Rich.....

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Yeah!! Rich wasn't going to miss this. He brought his Vespa and planned on riding
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I suggested maybe he should ride with the slow group and he looked at me like I had two heads!

That wasn't going to happen
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More old friends who have attended at least one of the previous events here.

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Greg, holding the dog, is the guy who was able to fix a few broken scooters.

It was great to see people and scooters rolling in.

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That Vespa with all the stickers on it is a GT200 named Rocket. It has over 104,000 miles on it!

There were plans to do a short ride but I couldn't get motivated until Bill decided to ride to Waterrock to see the sunset. The ride starts by going up a long grade to the BRP. My ADV150 bogged down to 38 MPH going up the hill. My Like could maintain at least 41MPH. Oh Well, it did get me up the hill.

On the BRP.

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Well we wouldn't see much of a sunset tonight.

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All thoughts of sunset disappeared when Don @dp064 showed up on a new bike. I thought he'd be back on his CSC San Gabriel which he brought to the two previous events here. Nope, he got a new bike.

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We all checked it out. Here Bill checks out the seating position.

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After ogling Don's new scooter for a while we headed back for Maggie Valley. I took some pics riding back. This first one was an over the shoulder shot on the BRP.

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This next one was from the turnoff to MV.

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After we got back to the motel we hung out and socialized until it was time to go to bed. Being mostly a bunch of old farts that was probably around 10PM. We had a ride planned for Monday but the weather forecast was for rain, rain and more rain. We decided to wait and see. Plan B was to hang out and maybe do some short local rides if there were breaks in the weather.
 
Monday August 1st.

I was up early and the weather forecast was ugly. At least it wasn't raining when I got up. I went out and took a few pics. Jim taking color coordination to the extreme!

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One of the three Helix's at the rally.

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Tony getting ready to unload his Vespa using his high tech ramp
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I was just standing by with my camera to record the crash but common sense prevailed and they used Jim's ramp instead of the board.

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We were getting ready to do a short local ride when the rain rolled in so we hung out for a while.
 
After a while the rain stopped and it looked like we would have about an hour and a half window of dry to go riding
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So I announced it was time to ride! We geared up......

and it started raining again
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Well, we were already geared up so off we went in the rain. It wasn't a downpour but it was more than just a drizzle.

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That's what rain gear is for!


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At least the temperature was comfortable. Not cold but not hot enough to make rain gear uncomfortable.

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Then the rain stopped and I cleaned my camera lens.

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I didn't count at the time but it looks like we had at least eleven riders willing to ride in the rain.

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Len on the Silverwing and Karin on a B400 came all the way from Canada.

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We rode up Cove Creek road which goes to Cataloochie Valley. It was recently resurfaced but not yet striped. It was a great ride
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I rode until the pavement ended and another couple hundred yards. The plan was to stop there, get a pic of everyone on the gravel road so we could claim to be great adventurers and then turn around
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I stopped and only one other scooter followed. What happened to everyone? I forget who was there with me but he said that Rich's scooter had died in the middle of a curve. We went back and found everyone stopped on the last curve before the pavement ended. Rich's scooter had started back up just fine but he knew we would be turning around so everyone else stopped there as well.

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We rode back to the motel. It ended up being a nice 40-50 mile ride.
Rich figured out the problem was his injector. Greg had just told us about that issue that morning and was able to fix the problem. That's 2 bikes fixed for Greg!!
The rain came back. We ate lunch and hung out at the motel.

Darren showed up with 2 scooters in his truck and a trailer with 2 more. By the time I took a pic only one bike still needed to be unloaded.

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Sometime around 4 or 5 the weather started clearing and it was time to ride again
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We headed out. The plan was to run the morning route in reverse.

Since we had riders riding at very different speeds we had to wait and re group at all turns. This gave me the chance to take some pics.

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One nice thing about Maggie Valley is you don't have to go far to find some curves
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Re grouping at the end of a road much twistier than the dragon.

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More riding through the pretty North Carolina countryside.

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We split into two groups. I was going to be riding a short stretch of gravel road. Steve led the few who chose to stay on the pavement. We would meet at a bridge.

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The gravel was less than a mile but had some cool views.

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I got a few pics looking back up towards the spot where I took the pic above.

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Tony on his red Vespa.

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We continued on some curvy roads through pretty countryside.

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Greg on his Moto Guzzi V7

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At this point Greg went ahead and we almost had an interesting story. He came up behind a slow moving SUV and passed it. We got stuck behind it. As we came around a curve there was a Sheriff SUV sitting in a driveway. We were going nice and slow behind that SUV but I'm sure Greg had a few anxious moments waiting to see if the flashing lights would come on.
 
A few more pics from back at the motel that evening. The motel put this on their sign and left it up all week.

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A few riders rode up to Waterrock Knob to catch the sunset but I passed and had to settle for these pics from the motel:

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That's it for pics for the day. What I don't have pics for is the great time I had hanging out that night with the other riders staying at the motel. That is a big part of the rally for me. Those who don't stay at the motel miss out on that.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week was much better and I was looking forward to a fantastic day of riding on Tuesday. Not only did we have a great forecast but the route I had planned is hard to beat anywhere for a curvaholic like me
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Tuesday August 2nd.

This would be the day of the Marshal ride. This is maybe the my favorite route ever!! After leaving town it's nearly non stop twisty roads that seem to go one forever. On top of that there is generally little or no traffic to slow you down. The only thing slowing you down is the tight curves.

I woke up early and was ready to go!

David and Doug were pre-flighting their scooters.

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The bikes were gathering.

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Greg's Vespa.

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We had another rider show up with an ADV150 so now we had two!

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For this ride we split up into a "fast" and "slow" group. I would be leading the fast group. While it may seem a little strange to have a fast group on a scooter ride, these roads are so tight that the limited power of many of the scooters really wasn't much of a factor. I have heard many riders say the dragon is too tight. Those riders wouldn't like this route.

The "fast" group lined up and ready to go.

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That looked like a ton of fun! Such a great area for two wheels of any kind with some hardcore peeps showing up for this event!
Great pics! :clap
It is an awesome area for riding but IMO it's especially good on a dual sport or scooter. Some of the roads are so tight that even a mid sized bike like my Versys 650 feels too big and heavy to fully enjoy them.
 
63 out of Trust is awesome
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. Uphill is a bit of a struggle for a 150 but downhill is sublime! I was too busy riding to take any pics. Then I took the wrong road off of 63. It was a bit rough but I knew it would get us there. Unfortunately someone had a minor spill. No real damage to rider or scooter.

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We also had a bike break down but we were told it was being worked on. I didn't know it at the time but it was Rocket, Bill's 104,000+ mile Vespa GT that broke down and Greg was working on it. If you are going to break down, Greg is the guy you want with you.

We rode into Marshall. I like this view and take a pic every time.

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After Marshall we picked up a road I found a few years ago. I love this road. It's perfect for a small scooter but IMO too tight and slow for a big bike. The views are an added bonus.

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This is one of those roads where we tend to get pretty spread out. It's a very challenging road so I needed to wait for the slower riders at an intersection which also makes a good place to get some action pics.

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