- Week Alabama, it's not like they said!

[klaviator]

What's in Corinth, MS? Lots of congestion and traffic for one thing. That's not we we rode there. There is a Yamaha and Honda dealer in Corinth. We walked into the main showroom.

Not much to look at. They had very little inventory. Even in normal times when the showroom is full it's just a bunch of Honda and Yamaha motorcycles, ATVs and side by sides that you can see at any Honda / Yamaha dealer. What they have here that other dealers don't is this:

They are a motorcycle museum. Two rooms full of vintage bikes and then more vintage bikes scattered around the building.

I like this place even better than the Wheels Through Time museum because this places has so many bikes I from my early riding days. They have several of my first dream bike, the Honda trail 70:

As I got a bit older my dream bike was the CB125s

 

[klaviator]

They have all kinds of cool stuff to look at. For the aviation buffs:

How about an ATV with a CBX engine.

Some WWII history.

If you have been riding for a while there will be something from your past there.

.

I took a bazillion pics while I was there. I won't post them all here because I already did that here: https://advbikes.com/threads/lake-hill-motors.1108/

 

[klaviator]

One last pic from the outside.

Then it was time to head back to ALabama. We stopped in Iuka, MS.

We checked out Eastport.

.

A view of the Tennessee Rive between Muscle Shoals and Florence.

We ended up riding around 300 miles.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

Last week an friend rode over from Georgia. The plan was to do a couple of rides here before the weather got hot. One of the places he wanted to ride to was in Mississippi.

MISSISSIPPI!!

Why would anyone want to ride there?? On top of that the weather turned out to be kind of crappy, cloudy and around 48 degrees all day we even got some rain and a bit of sleet

It was well over a hundred miles to our destination. I only got a few pics. We stopped at a motorcycle dealer in Florence, AL. It actually had a packed showroom but it was mostly used bikes.

.

Then we headed west on some mostly deserted country roads. We got on the Natchez Trace Parkway and crossed the Tennessee River.

Some people will go out of their way to ride the Trace but I find it to mostly be a pretty boring road.

We got off the trace and took 72 west to Corinth, MS.

A bunch of years ago, I was down in that area because my wife had a business trip there. I tagged along and took my bike. I met up with an inmate who lived there. We rode the parkway a bit but the best roads were around it, we criss crossed the parkway a bunch of times. The Blue Ridge Parkway is similar, the best roads are around it.

 

[FLrider]

I agree with you on the Natchez Trace Pkwy being a bit boring after a while.. It is beautiful area but the speed limit and the LEO's make it less fun than it could be IMHO. It is one of those roads your ride once to be able to say you've done it, but that's about it.. Same with the Dragon, but I digress... YMMV

 

[klaviator]

I agree with you on the Natchez Trace Pkwy being a bit boring after a while.. It is beautiful area but the speed limit and the LEO's make it less fun than it could be IMHO. It is one of those roads your ride once to be able to say you've done it, but that's about it.. Same with the Dragon, but I digress... YMMV

I can't say I agree on the dragon. It's a fun road if you catch it at a time when its not busy with tourons driving 20 MPH and a bunch of LEO's. It is however, over rated. People think it's a really twisty road but that's because they only ride the dragon, the skyway and a few other well known roads.

 

[Yinzer Moto]

I can't say I agree on the dragon. It's a fun road if you catch it at a time when its not busy with tourons driving 20 MPH and a bunch of LEO's. It is however, over rated. People think it's a really twisty road but that's because they only ride the dragon, the skyway and a few other well known roads.

I have been to the dragon a few times and always had fun. I have never been there on a weekend. I just set my speed at the speed limit or 5 over and hold it here. No hard braking or Acceleration. Just carving the turns. Setup the turn well at the beginning and carve on through. There are many other great roads in that area, including the dirt dragon.

 

[FLrider]

I can't say I agree on the dragon. It's a fun road if you catch it at a time when its not busy with tourons driving 20 MPH and a bunch of LEO's. It is however, over rated. People think it's a really twisty road but that's because they only ride the dragon, the skyway and a few other well known roads.

I have ridden the Dragon twice about 15 years apart and while it is best weekdays in order to avoid the weekend mayhem, I won't go back for a 3rd time, but that's just me. There are other lesser known roads in the area that are just as fun with 10% of the traffic.. YMMV

 

[klaviator]

I have ridden the Dragon twice about 15 years apart and while it is best weekdays in order to avoid the weekend mayhem, I won't go back for a 3rd time, but that's just me. There are other lesser known roads in the area that are just as fun with 10% of the traffic.. YMMV

I have ridden through the dragon hundreds of times. I still enjoy it but you are correct that there are a ton of lesser known roads with much less traffic. Part of the fun in going to the dragon is the entertainment provided by watching the "circus" that it has become. Its also a great place to meet people from all over the world.

 

[FLrider]

^ I definitely agree on the entertainment value that the Dragon offers…

 

[SandRdr]

^ I definitely agree on the entertainment value that the Dragon offers…

Damn near as good as a boat ramp in SoFL!

 

[EGR]

Damn near as good as a boat ramp in SoFL!

 

[klaviator]

Damn near as good as a boat ramp in SoFL!

Well some of those people on the dragon are probably Florida boat owners

 

[FLrider]

Well some of those people on the dragon are probably Florida boat owners

As a former fishing guide I do have some stories....... 🤣

 

[klaviator]

As a former fishing guide I do have some stories....... 🤣

There was a really long thread in JM in the other forum dedicated to stories from the boat ramp. Maybe you should start one here in Chit Chat.

 

[klaviator]

Back from a 5 day trip. I might have some stories to tell.

 

[FLrider]

…

 

[klaviator]

One of the things I like about living in Alabama is that it's not too far to other states that have really great riding. The last few years I have done spring and fall trips to Tellico Plains, TN for a few days of DS riding. Normally I set up an event and some others join me. For this spring I decided to attend the Eastern Rendezvous. This event has been going on for 22 years but I think this was the first time they had it in Tellico Plains. It was at the Cherohala Mountain Trails Campground which is where I always stay. It's just under 190 miles from my house so it's not a real long trip.

I loaded my truck and headed to Tellico on Wednesday. When I arrived there were already quite a few people there. I found a good spot and set up camp.

Set up next to me was Doug who drove down from Maryland. He had a GS1150 loaded in his truck. It is an old enough bike to qualify for a Historic tag in Maryland. I watched as he unloaded his bike and.......

Oops!

I started to help him but my years of experience as an ADV photographer allowed me to get my priorities straight

I forget exactly what I said to him but he said: "Oh no you don't" and rushed to pick up his bike.

He wasn't fast enough

He did make it look like a "How to pick up your bike" demonstration

An old riding buddy rode up from Blue Ridge , GA. on his brand new V-Strom 650.

We rode into Tellico and had dinner at the Tellicafe. I got to ride his bike back to the Campground.

He headed home and I noticed that another friend had set up camp.

A few random pics at the campground.

 

[klaviator]

On Thursday Morning I got up and wandered around the campground and talked to people. Eventually I got motivated to get suited up and go ride. I went through Tellico and rode 360 to 411. I wasn't motivated to take any pics until I got on 411 and saw this:

Someone had a bad day! I rode 72 to 129 and stopped to get a tourist pic.

A little later I saw a gravel road I didn't remember ever riding so I checked it out. It didn't go far.

I continued on 129. I was in a pretty mellow mood and just cruised along. Although 129, the "dragon" has a reputation for being really twisty with 318 curves in 11 miles, I find it to be a relaxing ride unless I'm trying to go fast. It isn't nearly as challenging as many other roads in the area. I saw a bench up on the side of a hill and stopped to check it out. I thought it might be the Scary Jerry memorial bench but it wasn't.

Looking down at my bike and the dragon.

A big group of Broncos came by.

I think there were at least 20 or 30 of them and I would see more of them later on my ride. Many looked to be set off for off road but I didn't see and dirt on any of them.

 

[klaviator]

I stopped at the Deal's Gap Motorcycle resort and hung out for a while. It wasn't very busy. I ate some trail mix for lunch and watched the bikes come and go. Three riders who were camped near me showed up so I took their pic.

The Guy on the Versys 300x commented that I didn't give them the chance for the ADV salute so I gave him that chance. He rode that bike down from Michigan!

I headed down 28. I was still being mellow but not so mellow that I didn't get stuck behind a couple of slow moving Harley's. They practically parked their bikes in every curve. Since I was feeling mellow I pulled of instead of passing them.

.