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+ Week Those Were the Days My friend.

During this period I did a number of rides up to the North Georgia Mountains on the weekends. I don't remember a lot of details but I often went on rides with others from ADVr as well as KLR650.net. I think that for organizing rides the KLR forum was actually more active. There was one very interesting, at least for me, ride that was organized on ADV. That ride was Flux's big adventure IV. The inmate who organized this was flux_capacitor. He was very active on the forum and organized several rides.

So the plan was to meet at Moto 400, a dealer on GA400 a bit south of the mountains. Then we would split into 3 or 4 groups and do some dual sport riding, stop at TWO for lunch and then more riding. I went with my XT350 for this ride. When I got to Moto 400 there was already a big crowd.

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No the ZX-14 in the next pic didn't go on the ride. I'm on the right side of the pic with my XT.

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As you can see we had a big crowd. We split into smaller groups for the ride. Much of the first part of the ride was on roads I had never been on before. Some of it was pretty muddy and challenging at least for someone of limited dirt skills like me. A few pics from the morning ride.

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Lunch was at TWO

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The TWO sign.

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flux_capacitor.

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After lunch I took off with another group. We headed off through Flatland Rd. The name of this road is not at all descriptive of this "road". It starts as a narrow, poor condition but paved road which turns to gravel and then eventually more of a dirt trail. It was muddy in spots, very rocky in others, rutted and sometimes steep. It was, and still is one of the most challenging legal rides in the area.

So I'm following some much more experienced riders. The group leader was riding an XR650L. We got up the road a ways and the guys up front stopped. I went up to see what was going on and the guy on the XR had broken his leg without even falling down
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He had caught his boot on something and it twisted his foot around breaking his leg
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We were in a place where there was no way to get an ambulance in there. They would need an ATV or hardcore off road vehicle to get in there. He decided to just ride out of there. And he did that. We abandoned the planned route and took the fastest way out of there and then back towards his home. He rode all the way home.

A pic of Flatland road. It doesn't show how rough and rutted it was.

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Another guy who tried to ride his R1200GS through Flatland road fell over, his bike fell on his leg and broke it.

I came through the ride un- injured and had a good time. Despite the injuries on this ride it did not sour me on group rides. It was cool meeting the other riders and learning some new places to ride.
 
At some later date I went on another ride set up by flux_capacitor. This ride was much smaller than the last one, maybe around 10-15 riders. It was memorable for a couple of reasons. One was one of the bikes that did the ride.

Not your typical dual sport:

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We did some riding including a really deep water crossing. I was tempted to wimp out and not cross the river but after the "Mad Max" Sv650 did it I could hardly wimp out since I was on a real dual sport bike. Lunch was at TWO again. And then like the last ride we rode Flatland Road again. Well I think Flatland Road must be cursed. It's not a good place to take a bunch of inmates through. The SV above, it went off the trail and down the side of the mountain
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Luckily some trees kept the bike and rider from falling too far down. They managed to pull it back up and it was still rideable. Actually, I didn't really see any difference in the bike except maybe a bit more mud
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I missed that event because I was busy with another issue. One of the guys was on a new to him DRZ400. It had street tires and no skid plate. Flatland road is not a place you want to ride without a good skidplate. So he punched a hole in the bottom of his engine and all the oil ran out
:(
OK, so how do we get his bike out of there
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Luckily we had a real Macgyver with us. He had some fuel line and a golf tee. He stuck the fuel line over the hole and drove it into the hole with the golf tee. It worked and sealed the hole. Someone else rode back to Suches and got a couple of quarts of oil. The rider of the DRZ then rode it out of there.
 
LOL. Flatland Road. We used to take this thing,
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suspension seriously tweeked for two-up, topo map and picnic and just poke around woods roads all day. No clues we got on that thing we later learned to be named Flatland. Rolled the front into one rut that stopped us like a brick wall. Later Admiral Pillion waded the creek to check bottom. Figured that was her least wet option…

Thanks for the reminder. 👍
 
December 7th, 1941. A day that lives on in infamy.

February 21st, 2009. Another day that lives on in infamy.......at least for those poor suckers who were dumb enough to ride with me that day
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It all started a couple of weeks before that. Winter of 2009 was pretty cold and wet. Sure you can ride year round in Georgia but who wants to go out and ride in cold and wet weather? PMS was setting in with many riders. I decided to set up a ride in the north Georgia mountains on the KLR forum. I posted a thread on the KLR forum and titled it:

First Annual North Georgia Global Warming&Drought Ride

Here's the first post:


I am sure that I'm not the only one around here tired of this weather and looking back fondly to the "good ol days" of global warming and drought. With that in mind, I am proposing a ride to the mountains on the first Sunday on which Global Warming and Drought return to N. Georgia.

This discussion was already started on the Tech Day thread but I thought it was time to start a separate thread. More details to follow. The pic below is what we will be sure to avoid:



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We might see some of this:

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More info to follow.
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The second post explained what I was planning:

Here's the Plan: I will be watching the forecast. When it looks like there will be a Sunday with a high temp in the 50's (Global warming), and sunny and dry (return of the Drought), I will announce it on this thread. The plan is to ride up into the N Georgia Mountains, have lunch at TWO, and then do some riding on the FS Roads in the area. If TWO is not open, plan B is lunch at Lenny's. If they are not open, plan C will probably to have lunch up around Blairsville. I'm open for suggestions for plan C. Does anyone know if Lenny's is open during the winter?

The route itself is TBA. I have a pretty good route starting at my house in West Cobb, going throught Cartersville, White, Talking Rock, and then up to Suches. Depending on who and how many are coming, I may change the route. One possibility is to pick a staging place closer to the mountains such as Jasper, or Ellijay. Also, for those coming from further east, it would make sense to pick another meeting place and then meet up in Suches.

If you are interested, please respond. Let me know if you will be riding or trailering, and if you have any questions or suggestions.

Obviously since the date hasn't been set, I don't expect any commitments, I just want to see who might be interested. I expect to pick a date by Wednesday or Thursday prior.


A lot of people were interested and there was a lot of response to this thread. I won't go into great detail here.

So what was winter like in north Georgia? Here's a post from a few days later:

I hope we won't have to wait until April. No sign of Global warming today. I took my dog for a walk this morning. The streets were a sheet of ice. I heard what sounded like a motorcycle and thought "what kind of fool would be riding in these conditions?" I found out a few seconds later:

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A pic I took down in Columbus, GA where it rarely snows:

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Luckily it didn't take too long for the weather forecast to get better and less than two weeks from when I proposed this ride we got a suitable forecast.

Feb 18th I posted this:

The weather forecast for Sunday still looks good
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, 55 and partly cloudy in the mountains
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That means we're going for a ride
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The ride was on!
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So everything was looking good until the night before the ride. One of the guys went riding in the mountains and posted that he encountered some snow and ice!

So maybe this ride would be a little more challenging than what I had planned for but we were all suffering pretty bad from PMS and we weren't cancelling the ride.
 
A couple of riders met at my house in Marietta and we headed off. It was pretty cold as we started of but warmed up as we went along. We picked up more riders at various spots along our route. I think we ended up with 11 riders, mostly on KLR650s. Most of the route getting to the mountains was paved and what little dirt we ride was easy.

A couple of pics I took on the way:

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Then we got to the start of FS42 where the real dual sporting would begin.

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So there was a little snow on the ground in the pic above. No big deal. We'll continue on, what could go wrong?

So we headed up the road with an emphasis on the word UP. As we went up to higher elevation we got into more snow.

OK, there was a little bit of snow on the ground. That makes for good pictures, no big deal. As you can see there were some narrow tires tracks where it was more mud than snow. We just rode in the tire tracks.........Until they disappeared..

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Now it was getting slick but things were still going good until we got pulled over for speeding
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Well OK, maybe not. We just stopped and talked to the Forest Ranger. On of the guys in the group had actually been given a ticket by this ranger at an earlier date.
As we rode along we got pretty strung out. Some riders were faster than others. We had some experienced dirt riders as well as some noobs had had done very little dual sport or group riding before. Some people were falling down
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One guy fell over and broke his clutch lever. Luckily another rider had a spare. So he installed it, rode a short distance and
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He broke the new clutch lever. This happened well behind me. I was stopped waiting for the rest of the group when one of them pulled up and asked if anyone had a clutch lever. It just so happened that I always carried a spare clutch and brake lever so I rode back and we installed it on the guys KLR. I told him if he wanted to do any more falling he needed to fall on the right side since I had spare brake lever
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He didn't listen and fell again on the left side
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Luckily he didn't break the lever.

We continued on. We took a left at the first intersection and headed down the mountain. What should have been a 20 minute ride took over 2 hours. We stopped at a fish Hatchery and took a break. The plan after this was to ride to TWO for lunch but some people headed off for home. It had already been a long and tiring days. I think some of us rode to TWO for lunch and then rode back home but to be honest, I don't remember much of the ride after the fish hatchery. The two+ hours in the snow on the other hand is a ride I will never forget. I doubt anyone on that ride will forget it. If the conditions had been nice and dry we would have done a lot more riding but I doubt that it would have been nearly as memorable.
 
Read the entire thread. Hope to meet up with you sometime if you're still frequenting TWOs or the area in general..
 
Read the entire thread. Hope to meet up with you sometime if you're still frequenting TWOs or the area in general..
I live in N. AL. now but make it over in that direction several times a year. I'll be in Maggie Valley, NC first week of August. I may make it to TWoS later in August and maybe again in Sept. I'm always up to meet other riders from the forum.
 
I live in N. AL. now but make it over in that direction several times a year. I'll be in Maggie Valley, NC first week of August. I may make it to TWoS later in August and maybe again in Sept. I'm always up to meet other riders from the forum.
Post here or send a PM. I've been meaning to get up to Wheels thru Time then ride Heintooga before it closes again this year.
 
A couple of weeks after the Global Warming and Drought ride I went for another ride. For various reasons I took the DR250 with a nearly worn out rear tire. My plan was to truck it up to Ellijay at the base of the mountains and ride an easy ride to TWO for lunch. On the way I decided to check out a road that we had been discussing on the KLR forum.

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Old Bucktown was one of the more challenging legal forest service roads in the area. I figured it would have snow on it but I wanted to go check it out. I could just turn around if there was snow.

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A little snow is no big deal right? After all I am on a dual sport bike.

So I continued on.

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Soon it was all covered in snow. There was a set of ATV tracks but no other sign anyone had been through recently.

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At this point this road was several miles of uphill. With my worn out rear tire progress was real slow. Most of the time I was walking alongside the bike pushing it. I was soon sweating and shedding layers. So why didn't I turn around? I started thinking about some of those epic ride reports like Sambor in Afghanistan and Colebatch in Siberia. Compared to what they did, this was nothing but I started to understand what drove them to do the rides they did. It was the challenge. I wanted to conquer this hill. Keep in mind that even without snow this is a pretty rough road.

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So I'm sweating like a pig. I have to take a break about every 50 yards.

This is taking forever.

Am I there yet???

Finally the top was in sight.

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Victory at last as I take a break at the top.

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Going down to the bottom was piece of cake. There had been traffic making it very slippery but it was downhill so I just took it slow.

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I made it to TWO for lunch.

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June 2010

Over the years I had gone to a number of riding events and rallies. I was always grateful that someone took the time to organize these events so I could attend and have a great weekend or several days. I had set up a number of multi day rides with a friend or two but this would be a first for me in that I decided to set up a week of riding for a group. I set it up on a forum and it was open to all.

Six of us met in Andrews NC where we would spend the first 3 days. I'll start by introducing the group:

Steve (raptorman)

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Bob (dirtroadpassion)

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Don (SloDon)

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Jim

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Paul (BritMan). I don't have a good pic of him as the pics he posted disappeared in the photobucket fiasco. He'll be in some of the group pics.

And last a pic of me with my Casio camera hanging around my neck so it was always ready to take pics.

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So we all met at a small motel in Andrews NC. This turned out to be a great place to base out of and was pretty inexpensive. Unfortunately the place closed down and was demolished within a couple of years of this trip
:(


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It was a cool place to hang out after the rides. Here the manager was hanging out with us.

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Bob and I in the parking lot.

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On the second day we headed over the Snowbird mountains on FS304 and then over the "gravohala". That would be the gravel roads that can be used to go from one end of the Cherohala Skyway to the other. We stopped at Bald River Falls for a group pic.

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We had lunch along the river just outside of Tellico Plains.

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We stopped at Tellico Motorcycle Outfitters.

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Then we rode a mix of narrow and rough paved roads and gravel/dirt roads up to Farr Gap.

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Then it was over the Cheroha and then Tatham Gap back to Andrews.

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June 2010

Over the years I had gone to a number of riding events and rallies. I was always grateful that someone took the time to organize these events so I could attend and have a great weekend or several days. I had set up a number of multi day rides with a friend or two but this would be a first for me in that I decided to set up a week of riding for a group. I set it up on a forum and it was open to all.

Six of us met in Andrews NC where we would spend the first 3 days. I'll start by introducing the group:

Steve (raptorman)

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Bob (dirtroadpassion)

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Don (SloDon)

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Jim

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Paul (BritMan). I don't have a good pic of him as the pics he posted disappeared in the photobucket fiasco. He'll be in some of the group pics.

And last a pic of me with my Casio camera hanging around my neck so it was always ready to take pics.

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So we all met at a small motel in Andrews NC. This turned out to be a great place to base out of and was pretty inexpensive. Unfortunately the place closed down and was demolished within a couple of years of this trip
:(


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It was a cool place to hang out after the rides. Here the manager was hanging out with us.

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Bob and I in the parking lot.

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Wow! Another flashback. Stayed in that motel a loong time ago. We were ‘85 K100rs. Met a two-up couple from N AL , Wing.
 
Day three was a route that had some of my favorite twisty paved roads with a few Dirt roads along the way. This was a route really perfect for the 650cc dual sport bikes we were all riding.

We stopped to check out a waterfalls.

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One of the other guys snapped my pic while we were briefly on a 4 lane road.

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Some of these roads were more twisty than the much more famous "dragon".

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Big dual sports make surprisingly good sport bikes on really tight roads and even with us old guys riding them we were soon getting carried away and getting competitive. How competitive?

How about this:
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OK, I had to work really hard to talk these guys into posing for this pic.

Taking a break.

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Day three was the last day for three of the group. Steve, Bob and I would head up to Maggie Valley the next day for a few days of riding in that area.
 
Slo Don with his GS.

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When I first met Don he had just bought a KLR650 and wanted to give dual sport riding a try. Best I remember I led Don and Bob on an "easy" DS ride into Paulding county. Most of the dirt roads around there are very easy but it had recently rained and we went down a red clay road. Don had a spectacular spill and was pretty much covered with clay. We figured he would never ride with us again but he did. I think the ride I just posted might have been the last time I rode with Don but we interact on ADVr from time to time.
 
When I first met Don he had just bought a KLR650 and wanted to give dual sport riding a try. Best I remember I led Don and Bob on an "easy" DS ride into Paulding county. Most of the dirt roads around there are very easy but it had recently rained and we went down a red clay road. Don had a spectacular spill and was pretty much covered with clay. We figured he would never ride with us again but he did. I think the ride I just posted might have been the last time I rode with Don but we interact on ADVr from time to time.

Don likes the dual sporting, he had a drz400 when we did trail 82 a few years ago. Great guy!
 
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