BornAgain
New member
Thanks I'm a shallow water seaman veteran (USCG) and I have really enjoyed your stories of past rides and adventures. Although I have to confess the singing sounded a little off key.
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+ Week Those Were the Days My friend.
- Thread starter klaviator
- Start date
Pdsmith505
Well-known member
So now I was retired after just over 21 years in the Navy and it was a really big transition. Someone I knew who retired as a Captain told a story that I think really fit how I felt. He had some come up to him and ask him "didn't you used to be someone"? Yeah, I felt like I used to be someone and now I was nobody.
So now I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I won't go into all the details but I ended up working a salesman at a small powersports dealer that sold Kawasaki and Yamaha motorcycles, ATVs and watercraft. It was a very interesting experience. It changed many of my views on motorcyclists in general. My experience with other riders had mostly been with other enthusiasts and that was not the typical customer. I learned a lot about financing as most customers financed, or tried to finance their toys. The finance part of the job was a real eye opener.
I picked a bad time to get into that industry as it took a downturn at that time and many dealers didn't make it including the one I worked for.
I didn't take any pics during this time and a ride reports without pics can get boring so I won't go into further details on my time in the motorcycle industry.
So now I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I won't go into all the details but I ended up working a salesman at a small powersports dealer that sold Kawasaki and Yamaha motorcycles, ATVs and watercraft. It was a very interesting experience. It changed many of my views on motorcyclists in general. My experience with other riders had mostly been with other enthusiasts and that was not the typical customer. I learned a lot about financing as most customers financed, or tried to finance their toys. The finance part of the job was a real eye opener.
I picked a bad time to get into that industry as it took a downturn at that time and many dealers didn't make it including the one I worked for.
I didn't take any pics during this time and a ride reports without pics can get boring so I won't go into further details on my time in the motorcycle industry.
So I was out of work again. The big advantage of having retired from the Navy was that I still had some income and health insurance. I considered and explored various options but eventually decided to do something I actually knew how to do. That would be flying. Back in Flight school I had spent 90 bucks to take a class and test which resulted in getting my Commercial single engine land, Helicopter and instrument ratings. Then in Detroit four of us spent 400 bucks each to get our written ATP exams. We did the flights in the Navy C-12. So for $490 I got all the ratings I would need to get a flying job. My only problem was that I had never done any civilian flying.
I got on a couple of aviation job sites and put my resume on them. I applied for a few jobs and even had an interview in Arizona for an Air Ambulance job. It would have been interesting living in Arizona but I didn't get that job. A company contacted me about flying a Caravan in Columbus, Ga. I did a phone interview and a flight with one of the company pilots. They offered me a job that day and I was in training a few days later. I started flying for them immediately after two weeks of training.
It was a pretty easy job. I was flying FEDEX freight from Columbus to Atlanta at night. I got about 5 and a half hours of sleep and flew back early in the morning. The flights were normally about 35 minutes long, longer in bad weather. It was a Monday through Friday job. Since Columbus was over two hours away in light traffic I got a small apartment and spent the week in Columbus, driving back to Marietta for the weekends.
With the that job I had a lot of free time. I bought a laptop and spent a lot of time on the internet. This is where I found out about and started spending time on motorcycle forums.
I got on a couple of aviation job sites and put my resume on them. I applied for a few jobs and even had an interview in Arizona for an Air Ambulance job. It would have been interesting living in Arizona but I didn't get that job. A company contacted me about flying a Caravan in Columbus, Ga. I did a phone interview and a flight with one of the company pilots. They offered me a job that day and I was in training a few days later. I started flying for them immediately after two weeks of training.
It was a pretty easy job. I was flying FEDEX freight from Columbus to Atlanta at night. I got about 5 and a half hours of sleep and flew back early in the morning. The flights were normally about 35 minutes long, longer in bad weather. It was a Monday through Friday job. Since Columbus was over two hours away in light traffic I got a small apartment and spent the week in Columbus, driving back to Marietta for the weekends.
With the that job I had a lot of free time. I bought a laptop and spent a lot of time on the internet. This is where I found out about and started spending time on motorcycle forums.
So I found motorcycle forums on the internet and started reading. I especially spent time on the Adventure Rider Forums. There was so much cool stuff there. I think I was mostly attracted to the ride reports section at first. I learned about the TAT, which I had never heard of before. There were all kinds of reports about epic trips from all over the world. There was one report that more than any other showed me the possibilities in this forum and inspired me to get off my lazy ass and start participating. I pulled out that digital camera that I had bought over two years earlier and was still in the box. I figured out how to use it, it really wasn't rocket science
I got a photobucket account and learned how to post pics.
So what was this report that inspired me? It was Quit my job to go on a "little" ride....US Tour '07 by kaneman. I'd recommend reading it but all of the pics he posted are no longer there. The basic story was about a young guy who was tired of his job working in a cubicle who decided to quit his job and just head off on a ride. He posted a ride report as he went along and soon got a big following. Inmates invited him over and fed him, gave him a place to stay, took him deep sea fishing, racing, skydiving and all kinds of cool stuff. He ended up having a trip that never would have happened without ADV. He met a lot of the inmates here some of whom ended up meeting each other through this report. I think he ended up being on the road for over a year. There was also some controversy about this report but I won't go into that here. Let's just say that this report was an inspiration for me and had a big impact on me.
Angola, it's not like they said. by metaljockey. This is the classic epic ride report. Back when ADV had a rating system for ride reports 5 stars was described as "metaljockey" If you have never read this report I highly recommend it.
There were other epic ride reports. Today it seems that people who go on really epic rides end up on U tube instead of doing a ride report on a forum. The old classic for the most part are still there.
Besides doing a lot of reading, I also wanted to be able to post so in May of 2008 I registered and became an inmate of on ADVr. One of the things I had to come up with was a user name. Many of the really cool names like metaljockey were already taken. Unfortunately I'm really not very original. I considered my main adventure bike to be my KLR650. So why not put that into my name? KLR pilot maybe? Nahh, I think that had already been done. Besides, I had been more than just a pilot, I had been a Naval Aviator.
So maybe KLR Aviator
That just didn't flow very well. I mean how would you pronounce that?
So I removed the R and came up with KL Aviator. To make it into one word and easier to type I just made it klaviator. Yes I know, not really all that imaginative. I'm sure I might have come up with something better given enough time. However looking back at it now I made a pretty good choice. I no longer have that KLR but the name still fits....more on that later in this report.
So what was this report that inspired me? It was Quit my job to go on a "little" ride....US Tour '07 by kaneman. I'd recommend reading it but all of the pics he posted are no longer there. The basic story was about a young guy who was tired of his job working in a cubicle who decided to quit his job and just head off on a ride. He posted a ride report as he went along and soon got a big following. Inmates invited him over and fed him, gave him a place to stay, took him deep sea fishing, racing, skydiving and all kinds of cool stuff. He ended up having a trip that never would have happened without ADV. He met a lot of the inmates here some of whom ended up meeting each other through this report. I think he ended up being on the road for over a year. There was also some controversy about this report but I won't go into that here. Let's just say that this report was an inspiration for me and had a big impact on me.
Angola, it's not like they said. by metaljockey. This is the classic epic ride report. Back when ADV had a rating system for ride reports 5 stars was described as "metaljockey" If you have never read this report I highly recommend it.
There were other epic ride reports. Today it seems that people who go on really epic rides end up on U tube instead of doing a ride report on a forum. The old classic for the most part are still there.
Besides doing a lot of reading, I also wanted to be able to post so in May of 2008 I registered and became an inmate of on ADVr. One of the things I had to come up with was a user name. Many of the really cool names like metaljockey were already taken. Unfortunately I'm really not very original. I considered my main adventure bike to be my KLR650. So why not put that into my name? KLR pilot maybe? Nahh, I think that had already been done. Besides, I had been more than just a pilot, I had been a Naval Aviator.
So maybe KLR Aviator
That just didn't flow very well. I mean how would you pronounce that?
So I removed the R and came up with KL Aviator. To make it into one word and easier to type I just made it klaviator. Yes I know, not really all that imaginative. I'm sure I might have come up with something better given enough time. However looking back at it now I made a pretty good choice. I no longer have that KLR but the name still fits....more on that later in this report.
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Since I was only home weekends the amount of riding I was doing went down quite a bit. My motorcycle collection was also getting smaller. I sold Debbi's Seca about the time I bought the KLR. Since no one was riding the TTR125 anymore I sold it. After a while I took the GS down to Columbus and used it to commute back to Marietta some of the time.
When I bought the GS my goal was to keep it for at least 100,000 miles. I was racking up the miles on the GS but I also had some issues with it. Back in 2006 (I think) I rode it up to Lexington for the National HSTA rally that year. I was riding home with my friend Doug when somewhere in some small town in Kentucky I noticed my front brake dragging. One of the brake calipers wouldn't release. We took it off and pried the pads back but as soon as the brakes were applied it would stick again. So we removed the brake rotor, stuck some spacers between the pads and I finished the rider home with just one front brake.
Also about that time the transmission started jumping out of gear. I took it to the BMW dealer. Fixing it would be very expensive. Replacing the tranny with a remanufactured tranny with a one year warranty was only about 200 dollars more so I did that. That was at 61,000 miles.
Then, while I was working in Columbus one of the cylinders started leaking oil. I took it to a local shop to get the head gasket replaced. When they took the head off they found that a plastic cam chain guide had broken off and the piece was somewhere in the motor. It was only a $10 part but required removing the engine to replace it
I went ahead and had it fixed and continued to ride the bike.
One day I was riding up towards TWO for lunch on a back road, probably going around 65, when Bambi jumped in front of me
An instant later Bambi was dead and the GS and I were sliding/tumbling down the road
The GS ended up off the side of the road. I stopped face down in the middle of the road. I got up. Everything seemed to be OK. Closer examination discovered some road rash on one elbow. My jacket didn't even have a scratch on it
It was a Joe Rocket mesh jacket. It fit really loose. I think the sleeve rode up then dropped back down when I got up. The bike was pretty messed up but I was able to ride it back home. I planned on fixing it up but it ended up sitting in the basement for a long time. It had 87,000 miles on it, well short of my 100K goal.
So with all that this was what I had left to ride.
When I bought the GS my goal was to keep it for at least 100,000 miles. I was racking up the miles on the GS but I also had some issues with it. Back in 2006 (I think) I rode it up to Lexington for the National HSTA rally that year. I was riding home with my friend Doug when somewhere in some small town in Kentucky I noticed my front brake dragging. One of the brake calipers wouldn't release. We took it off and pried the pads back but as soon as the brakes were applied it would stick again. So we removed the brake rotor, stuck some spacers between the pads and I finished the rider home with just one front brake.
Also about that time the transmission started jumping out of gear. I took it to the BMW dealer. Fixing it would be very expensive. Replacing the tranny with a remanufactured tranny with a one year warranty was only about 200 dollars more so I did that. That was at 61,000 miles.
Then, while I was working in Columbus one of the cylinders started leaking oil. I took it to a local shop to get the head gasket replaced. When they took the head off they found that a plastic cam chain guide had broken off and the piece was somewhere in the motor. It was only a $10 part but required removing the engine to replace it
One day I was riding up towards TWO for lunch on a back road, probably going around 65, when Bambi jumped in front of me
So with all that this was what I had left to ride.
In the fall of 2009 Steve and I decided to head up to North Carolina for six days of dual sport riding. We had done a lot of dual sport riding together in the past but this time it would be different because I now had a digital camera and planned on doing a ride report. Since we were planning on doing some fairly fough off road on some days and more twisty paved stuff on others we both brought two bikes, one small light bike for the rougher stuff and one big thumper. I brought my XT and KLR, steve brought his DRZ250 and DR650.
Since half of the day was spent loading up, driving up to Maggie Valley and unloading, the first day was a fairly short ride on the small bikes.
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Since half of the day was spent loading up, driving up to Maggie Valley and unloading, the first day was a fairly short ride on the small bikes.
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The second day we used the roll charts from the Octoberfest rides we had done a few times in the past. There was some pretty challenging off road involved so we took the small bikes again.
Some twisty paved roads started the day. Small dual sport bikes are just as much fun on these roads as a sportbike IMO, maybe more
Then it was an easy dirt road which led to Hurricane Creek Road. I us the term "road" very loosely here. Hurricane creek road was a 6.5 mile rutted, rocky, and muddy trail with multiple creek crossings. At the end it ended abruptly on I-40. There was no on or off ramp. If you weren't paying attention you would end up as the hood ornament for an 18 wheeler
I wanted to show what this road was like so both Steve and I took a lot of pics. Here are a few:
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I-40 at the end.
Some twisty paved roads started the day. Small dual sport bikes are just as much fun on these roads as a sportbike IMO, maybe more
Then it was an easy dirt road which led to Hurricane Creek Road. I us the term "road" very loosely here. Hurricane creek road was a 6.5 mile rutted, rocky, and muddy trail with multiple creek crossings. At the end it ended abruptly on I-40. There was no on or off ramp. If you weren't paying attention you would end up as the hood ornament for an 18 wheeler
I wanted to show what this road was like so both Steve and I took a lot of pics. Here are a few:
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I-40 at the end.
We jumped on I-40 for a mile and got off at the next exit where we got on a long forest service road, FS288. On this road was Buzzard's Roost, a spectacular overlook about 1000 feet above I-40.
FS288 led us to another FS road which was about as challenging as Hurricane Creek. I didn't get many pics of this trail. It had the most challenging creek crossing of the day:
It doesn't look like much in the pic above but had a steep and rocky approach and a lot of rocks in the creek.
Then it was a mix if gravel and twisty paved roads on our way to lunch. This next pic is on a road I like to call the "dragon's evil twin" Think 318 curves in around 8 miles instead of 11 and you'll get the idea
Lunch stop:
After lunch we rode through the Martha Sundquist state forest, some gravel roads in Smoky Mountain National Park as well as more twisty paved road on our way back to Maggie Valley.
It was a long day and we were pretty wiped out by the time we finished.
day three coming up.
FS288 led us to another FS road which was about as challenging as Hurricane Creek. I didn't get many pics of this trail. It had the most challenging creek crossing of the day:
It doesn't look like much in the pic above but had a steep and rocky approach and a lot of rocks in the creek.
Then it was a mix if gravel and twisty paved roads on our way to lunch. This next pic is on a road I like to call the "dragon's evil twin" Think 318 curves in around 8 miles instead of 11 and you'll get the idea
Lunch stop:
After lunch we rode through the Martha Sundquist state forest, some gravel roads in Smoky Mountain National Park as well as more twisty paved road on our way back to Maggie Valley.
It was a long day and we were pretty wiped out by the time we finished.
day three coming up.
Tripped1
Well-known member
Those where the days my friend....
That was the title of a song by Mary Hopkin that came out in 1968. Yes some of us were around back then. If you remember this song then you are old! I took the liberty of modifying the lyrics a bit to fit this ride report.
… Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd ride and ride forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd ride and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days
I think many of you are like me. You have been riding for a long time. Its not the same as it used to be. Remember those days when riding was an all new adventure? Remember when we were immortal and would be able to ride forever?
I still remember.
I remember how it all started. It probably started the same way for me as it did for you, with a bicycle. Actually it was more than one bicycle as I had several. What a revelation. I could go much faster than I could run and I could go much farther. The problem is that pedaling could get tiring. Going up hills was no fun. Going downhill was much more fun. Why couldn't all roads just go downhill?
There was a solution. It was called a motorcycle. Wouldn't that be so cool. Some of us put cards on our bikes so that the spokes would hit them when we rode and it kind of sounded like a motorcycle.
But it didn't get us up those hills any faster.
Some kids in the neighborhood had mini bikes. You might remember them. Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine, centrifugal clutch, no gears and only a rear brake that was very crude.
Something like this:
One really lucky guy had one of these:
I really lusted after that Honda but would have been happy with a plain mini bike. My parents wouldn't let me get one. I guess those were not the days.....................yet!
Those days are coming up..........
My wife's 1979(ish)
Looks like a fun rideMy wife's 1979(ish)
For day three we rode the big bikes because we would be mostly on the pavement. We headed up on the BRP to start.
Then some twisty and scenic paved roads.
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We did get a little dirty but nothing like the previous day.
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That's it for our riding out of Maggie Valley. The next morning we loaded up and headed for Andrews. Maggie herself was there to see us off
Then some twisty and scenic paved roads.
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We did get a little dirty but nothing like the previous day.
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That's it for our riding out of Maggie Valley. The next morning we loaded up and headed for Andrews. Maggie herself was there to see us off
We got to Andrews, unloaded and got ready to ride. Except Steve couldn't find his bike keys. He searched everywhere and even called back to the motel in Maggie Valley.
No keys anywhere
Steve was pretty upset and told me to go ride while he tried to figure out what to do.
So I went riding. I didn't ride real far, just a couple of my favorites and some exploring of some roads and trails I normally rode past.
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I stopped at a gas station and saw I had missed a call from Steve. I called him back. He had found his keys. Apparently when we first got to our motel in Andrews he had but the keys in the nightstand drawer and forgot about it. He never thought to look there. It's one of those have something in your hand and 30 seconds later have no idea what you did with it situations. I've done it thousands of times. Well now I felt better.
One more pic for the day:
No keys anywhere
Steve was pretty upset and told me to go ride while he tried to figure out what to do.
So I went riding. I didn't ride real far, just a couple of my favorites and some exploring of some roads and trails I normally rode past.
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I stopped at a gas station and saw I had missed a call from Steve. I called him back. He had found his keys. Apparently when we first got to our motel in Andrews he had but the keys in the nightstand drawer and forgot about it. He never thought to look there. It's one of those have something in your hand and 30 seconds later have no idea what you did with it situations. I've done it thousands of times. Well now I felt better.
One more pic for the day:
Day 5 was another big bike day. There would be a mix of street and dirt but nothing really challenging. We headed North and East. This area has some of the twistiest roads in the state, roads with much tighter curves than that much more famous road in the area. Roads with little traffic.
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A nice 80 MPH dirt road.
more curves.
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A nice 80 MPH dirt road.
more curves.
Winding Stair road, one of my favorites.
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Day six was also a mix of dirt and pavement. We headed west from Andrews.
Bald River Falls.
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Cherahola Skyway.
Tatham Gap to finish the ride.
That finished up the riding. We headed home the next day. I did a ride report at the time. I tried to do it every day but had some issues with my laptop crashing a lot and marginal WiFi so I finished after getting home. It was my first ride report but wouldn't be my last. The original ride report has a lot more detail than what I just posted here. If you're interested the link is here: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/six-days-of-dual-sport-riding-in-the-southern-smokies.512682/
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Day six was also a mix of dirt and pavement. We headed west from Andrews.
Bald River Falls.
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Cherahola Skyway.
Tatham Gap to finish the ride.
That finished up the riding. We headed home the next day. I did a ride report at the time. I tried to do it every day but had some issues with my laptop crashing a lot and marginal WiFi so I finished after getting home. It was my first ride report but wouldn't be my last. The original ride report has a lot more detail than what I just posted here. If you're interested the link is here: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/six-days-of-dual-sport-riding-in-the-southern-smokies.512682/
Repeat pic of my bikes at the time:
With the demise of the GS I no longer had a good bike for riding two up. The KDX was obviously out. When I bought the KLR Debbi got on the back and we went for a short ride. It sucked. The bike handled like crap and Debbi was not comfortable on the back. Between the seat and soft suspension I knew the XT would not work so we never even tried riding two up on it. That left the DR. Surprisingly it wasn't bad two up for a short ride.
Going back to the premise of this thread: "Those were the days my friend". One of the people who played a big part of "those days" was Frank Cheek the founder and original owner of the Two Wheels Only motorcycle resort. I know I mentioned him few times in this story but I didn't come close to capturing all the good times I had with him. When he was running TWO it felt like I was visiting relatives because of the way he and his wife Jeannie treated me. I went on many rides with Frank. He loved to take others to his favorite places for lunch. There was the Dawsonville Pool room, home of the "bully Burger" and filled with Bill Elliot pictures. There was the Sky Valley store with it's old fashioned soda fountain. Another was the little restaurant in back of the gas station in Tiger.
I went flying with Frank in his airplane. I had dinner with Him, Jeannie and his friends. I sometimes stopped by his house in Suches just to say hi and visit a bit.
And last but not least, Frank Started TWO, one of my favorite riding destinations. Without TWO I would never have met Frank or many other fascinating riders over the years. Today there are many motorcycle only places in the Southeast but Frank was the pioneer who started it all.
A few days before I went on that 6 day dual sport ride to North Carolina I found out that Frank had passed away
It wasn't really unexpected since his health had been deteriorating the past few year but it was still a shock.
I didn't make it to his funeral but there was a memorial service planned a few weekends later. This was something I wasn't going to miss. Debbi and I got into my S-10 pickup and headed up towards Suches on a cold October morning. Part of the memorial would be a short ride in the mountains with one of the riders carrying Frank's ashes. So I put the DR250 in the back of the truck and we brought our riding gear. We drove around Atlanta and were headed North on GA400 when suddenly the truck just died
Oh crap! Of all the times for this to happen. This really sucked. No way could I ask Debbi to ride on the back of the DR all the way to Suches on such a cold day.
Debbi said " lets just leave the truck here and get on the bike and go.
Yeah, I did well when I married her.
So that's what we did. GA400 is basically a multi lane highway near Atlanta tapering down to a divided 4 lane with occasional traffic lights as it went North. The DR wasn't exactly the ideal mode of transportation for this road but it did the job. At the end of 400 we stopped so Debbi could get off the bike and thaw out a bit. Then it was another 20 miles of curvy mountain roads up to Suches. With the higher elevations came even colder temperatures. We were a little late but we made it there.
The site of the service was High Valley Airport. This place had been part of TWO and was across the road from Frank's house. The memorial service was being held inside but many it was full so many of us listened from outside.
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There was an interesting mix of people there from Frank's neighbors and relatives to a bunch of motorcycle riders. After the Church service there was a pot luck lunch. Many people had brought food and there was no shortage of it. Then there was a Frank Story telling session. They had a mic and it was passed around so people could tell their "Frank" stories.
After that there was a memorial ride. The route was the "cooler run", a 36 mile loop starting and ending at the Airport. There was an interesting mix of vehicles but Debbi and I didn't go on the ride. We had to figure out how to get Debbi Home and I had to go take care of the truck. Riding all the way back to Marietta two up on the DR was not a good option. We found someone headed that direction who had driven up to take Debbi home. I would ride back to the truck then home.
Back to the service. After the ride they took Frank's ashes up in a plane and scattered them over his beloved mountains.
I was really glad to have had the chance to know Frank. One big regret was that during all the time I spent with Frank I only took one picture of him.
RIP Frank. I still miss him.
After I got home I did a ride report on our trip to Frank's service. There are more pics and comments there: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/frank-cheek-memorial-ride-pics-and-stories.517106/
With the demise of the GS I no longer had a good bike for riding two up. The KDX was obviously out. When I bought the KLR Debbi got on the back and we went for a short ride. It sucked. The bike handled like crap and Debbi was not comfortable on the back. Between the seat and soft suspension I knew the XT would not work so we never even tried riding two up on it. That left the DR. Surprisingly it wasn't bad two up for a short ride.
Going back to the premise of this thread: "Those were the days my friend". One of the people who played a big part of "those days" was Frank Cheek the founder and original owner of the Two Wheels Only motorcycle resort. I know I mentioned him few times in this story but I didn't come close to capturing all the good times I had with him. When he was running TWO it felt like I was visiting relatives because of the way he and his wife Jeannie treated me. I went on many rides with Frank. He loved to take others to his favorite places for lunch. There was the Dawsonville Pool room, home of the "bully Burger" and filled with Bill Elliot pictures. There was the Sky Valley store with it's old fashioned soda fountain. Another was the little restaurant in back of the gas station in Tiger.
I went flying with Frank in his airplane. I had dinner with Him, Jeannie and his friends. I sometimes stopped by his house in Suches just to say hi and visit a bit.
And last but not least, Frank Started TWO, one of my favorite riding destinations. Without TWO I would never have met Frank or many other fascinating riders over the years. Today there are many motorcycle only places in the Southeast but Frank was the pioneer who started it all.
A few days before I went on that 6 day dual sport ride to North Carolina I found out that Frank had passed away
It wasn't really unexpected since his health had been deteriorating the past few year but it was still a shock.
I didn't make it to his funeral but there was a memorial service planned a few weekends later. This was something I wasn't going to miss. Debbi and I got into my S-10 pickup and headed up towards Suches on a cold October morning. Part of the memorial would be a short ride in the mountains with one of the riders carrying Frank's ashes. So I put the DR250 in the back of the truck and we brought our riding gear. We drove around Atlanta and were headed North on GA400 when suddenly the truck just died
Debbi said " lets just leave the truck here and get on the bike and go.
So that's what we did. GA400 is basically a multi lane highway near Atlanta tapering down to a divided 4 lane with occasional traffic lights as it went North. The DR wasn't exactly the ideal mode of transportation for this road but it did the job. At the end of 400 we stopped so Debbi could get off the bike and thaw out a bit. Then it was another 20 miles of curvy mountain roads up to Suches. With the higher elevations came even colder temperatures. We were a little late but we made it there.
The site of the service was High Valley Airport. This place had been part of TWO and was across the road from Frank's house. The memorial service was being held inside but many it was full so many of us listened from outside.
.
There was an interesting mix of people there from Frank's neighbors and relatives to a bunch of motorcycle riders. After the Church service there was a pot luck lunch. Many people had brought food and there was no shortage of it. Then there was a Frank Story telling session. They had a mic and it was passed around so people could tell their "Frank" stories.
After that there was a memorial ride. The route was the "cooler run", a 36 mile loop starting and ending at the Airport. There was an interesting mix of vehicles but Debbi and I didn't go on the ride. We had to figure out how to get Debbi Home and I had to go take care of the truck. Riding all the way back to Marietta two up on the DR was not a good option. We found someone headed that direction who had driven up to take Debbi home. I would ride back to the truck then home.
Back to the service. After the ride they took Frank's ashes up in a plane and scattered them over his beloved mountains.
I was really glad to have had the chance to know Frank. One big regret was that during all the time I spent with Frank I only took one picture of him.
RIP Frank. I still miss him.
After I got home I did a ride report on our trip to Frank's service. There are more pics and comments there: https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/frank-cheek-memorial-ride-pics-and-stories.517106/
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Tripped1
Well-known member
Looks like a fun ride
I need to put a smaller rear sprocket on it. Its a centrifical clutch 4sp....and seriously odd one in that the transmission is cyclical, you can go from 4th to 1st and vice versa. But with the stroker kit on it it will pull me up a 20% grade at like 35mph, and is just because I was don't want to spin it any harder, not close to running out of juice.
Did you know Frank very well?
No, I never got the chance. It was 2010/11 before I made it up to TWO for the first time.