TWO of Suches

[OIC]

https://twowheelsofsuches.com/ Im not affiliated in anyway just a very happy customer. If you are traveling through the area on a weekend, its worth going out of your way a bit to get there. Food is decent, showers are clean and the cabins are very nice. Its a very cool, friendly and unique place.

They are having their swap meet Saturday 8-4 buy sell trade.

ETA, they show MOTOGP races too

 

[klaviator]

I've been going there since 1990 when it was Two Wheels Only. It's always been one of my favorite places.

 

[OIC]

I've been going there since 1990 when it was Two Wheels Only. It's always been one of my favorite places.

Its a real gem with some roads in the area that I couldn't draw up any better. They have put a lot of effort into the place since they bought it and it really shows.

 

[OIC]

Honda Hangout 25rh and 26th. demo rides, Turner flat track team, MOTOGP, should be a great weekend at TWO

 

[Aviator]

Try their chicken philly cheesesteak. Awesome.

 

[OIC]

Try their chicken philly cheesesteak. Awesome.

it is, the biscuits are good too, good salads, I usually get the chicken tenders. They really do a great job and we are very lucky to have that place.

 

[klaviator]

............we are very lucky to have that place.

Yes we are very lucky. I still remember when TWO closed and there was a period of a couple of years when the place was vacant and up for sale. It was so sad to stop by and see the place like that. I think this was in 2011.

 

[klaviator]

This place has a very interesting history. I'm sure this isn't anything new to riders who live in the area but for those not so familiar, here goes.

There was a long time motorcycle rider named Frank Cheek who lived in Suches Georgia. One day he rode up to a campground and was turned away because he was on a motorcycle. This pissed him off so he decided to start a campground in Suches. He called it Two Wheels only because it was only for motorcyclists. This was sometime around 1980 although i don't know the exact year. I first went there in 1990. In 1991 my wife took this pic:

I first went there in October of 1990 when I lived in Florida. In 91 I took seven trips there and I became a regular there despite moving to MI, MD, ME, AL. In 2002 I moved to N. GA and became more of a regular.

Back to Frank Cheek. If you knew him you know he was a real character. He had a reputation for embarrassing sportbike riders on his Goldwing and later Voyager. He either liked you or he didn't. If he didn't you probably don't have a high opinion of him. Luckily he like me, maybe because he had been a Naval Aviator and I was a Naval Aviator.

A pic of Frank with my wife back in 1991.

To be continued....

 

[JustAnotherSquid]

I wanted to stay there but they wouldn't let me in. So I went down the road a few miles and stayed at High Valley Resorts.

 

[klaviator]

TWO has gone through several phases. Phase one was when frank Started it at the present location. Phase 2 was when he moved it to the Airport location on 180. Today that is Highland resort or something like that. Frank's house was just across the street overlooking the airport which was Frank's private airport and had a 2000 foot grass runway. Phase three was when he moved TWO back to the present location in Suches. He also used the airport location for overflow. When I first went there in 1990 that was the situation with most people staying at the main location but some camping at the airport.

TWO under Frank was a very different place from what it is today. Frank was in the business of providing lodging/camping to out of town motorcyclists. He was not in the restaurant business. He normally made breakfast but only served lunch or dinner for special events. The breakfast menu had two choices: 1. Take it. 2. Leave it. At least it was cheap at 3 bucks for breakfast and that included tax and tip.

I wasn't a camper back then so I stayed in the main lodge which had three bedrooms upstairs and a small room on the porch. It was a cool place to stay as there were normally other interesting riders staying there. Back then there was no cable TV there and no Cell phones so people would actually talk to each other. Since there was no restaurant there I would normally ride to Dahlonega for dinner, often with other people who were staying there.

This was TWO back in 1991.

 

[OIC]

TWO has gone through several phases. Phase one was when frank Started it at the present location. Phase 2 was when he moved it to the Airport location on 180. Today that is Highland resort or something like that. Frank's house was just across the street overlooking the airport which was Frank's private airport and had a 2000 foot grass runway. Phase three was when he moved TWO back to the present location in Suches. He also used the airport location for overflow. When I first went there in 1990 that was the situation with most people staying at the main location but some camping at the airport.

TWO under Frank was a very different place from what it is today. Frank was in the business of providing lodging/camping to out of town motorcyclists. He was not in the restaurant business. He normally made breakfast but only served lunch or dinner for special events. The breakfast menu had two choices: 1. Take it. 2. Leave it. At least it was cheap at 3 bucks for breakfast and that included tax and tip.

I wasn't a camper back then so I stayed in the main lodge which had three bedrooms upstairs and a small room on the porch. It was a cool place to stay as there were normally other interesting riders staying there. Back then there was no cable TV there and no Cell phones so people would actually talk to each other. Since there was no restaurant there I would normally ride to Dahlonega for dinner, often with other people who were staying there.

This was TWO back in 1991.

Excellent! Keep it coming please. I have friends that went there in the Frank days, I just missed it and started coming up there (from Raleigh) right after Bill opened it.

 

[klaviator]

Excellent! Keep it coming please. I have friends that went there in the Frank days, I just missed it and started coming up there (from Raleigh) right after Bill opened it.

Frank stopped running it way before Bill re-opened it. Between Frank and Bill where the Brit and GT years. I'll get to that after I finish with the early Frank days.

 

[EGR]

Good stuff! Those early days, when bike only places started, were enough for me to learn empathy for lepers, pancho villa, lost commies, et al. We one time stopped in a RV camp in Damascus VA. Van with box trailer. Next day punted us out when they realized there was bike in trailer…

 

[klaviator]

Good stuff! Those early days, when bike only places started, were enough for me to learn empathy for lepers, pancho villa, lost commies, et al. We one time stopped in a RV camp in Damascus VA. Van with box trailer. Next day punted us out when they realized there was bike in trailer…

I believe that TWO was the first of its kind. All of those other motorcycle campgrounds like Iron Horse came after TWO.

 

[klaviator]

Some random memories from the early days of TWO.

As I mentioned earlier, Frank ran the place mainly as lodging for out of town riders. Since he normally didn't serve lunch or dinner there weren't the kind of crowds there during the day on weekends you see now. Frank called people who just stopped by "PALS". That stood for Pissers And Lookers. The would stop by, use the bathroom but not buy anything. Of course there wasn't much to buy except for the Coke machine and pay phone on the back porch.

One time some guy trailered his bike there from out of town. He had a room up in the lodge, It was a rainy day but he went riding anyway. The problem was this guy left his car parked right out front where there was a "motorcycle parking only" sign. This really pissed Frank off. When the guy got back Frank was waiting for him. He yelled at him and and said: "You have failed as a customer!" Then he told him to get out and made him leave.

Frank was not a big Harley fan. Rumor has it that he didn't paved the driveway and parking lot because it kept many of the Harley riders away. One time some Harley riders stopped by and asked him if 180 was a good road to ride on their harleys. His answer: "I'd rather push a turd up a hill with my nose than ride a Harley down 180"

 

[klaviator]

Some more about TWO during the Frank Cheek days.

In 1991 Kawasaki held one of their Good Times rallies at TWO. They estimated that over 6,000 people attended. I was one of those people and rode up from Florida for this event. They used both the Main lodge as well as the airport location to host this event. Kawasaki had demo rides and I rode the ZX11 which was the fastest production motorcycle in the world at the time. I also rode the ZX-7which was a hard core sport bike.

Some pics:

ZX-11 demo bike.

The main lodge:

The airport:

.

 

[klaviator]

One thing about TWO in the Frank Cheek era was that to me it felt more like I was going to visit family than just staying at a motel. I got to Know frank and his wife Jeannie as well as some of the regulars there. One time I was staying there and Frank pulled up and asked if I wanted to go flying. He didn't have to twist my arm. We went to his airport which was 7/10th of a mile down the road and jumped into his Maule, fired it up and went flying around the local area for around 30 minutes.

Those days were before everyone used GPS to get around. Frank would offer advice on where to ride to his customers. He had these home made maps and he would pull out a pen and add in directions for custom routes.

I used these maps a lot. Notice that back then there was no Cherahola Skyway. TN 165 was a dead end road back then and had much less traffic. We would run it at some pretty high speeds and never saw any law enforcement on it.

 

[stbne]

I stayed in the porch bedroom back in 2010..the last year it was T.W.O. Our Vintage Yamaha rally was getting larger every year so T.W.O. was getting to be too small to accomdate our numbers...After they closed we moved our rally to the Iron Horse Lodge. The Yamaha rally began in 2003 in Suches with just a handful of Yamaha XS1100 riders...I didnt move south until 2009 and thus I only went to TWO the last year before it went vacant..I have been back twice and it is a great venue..Was sad to see they got rid of the front porch room and that they actually poured a concrete driveway..They have made many upgrades since the new managaement took over...There is a great community of motorcyclists... bikers and scooterists in N. GA..I have several friends who live in Dahlonega...

 

[klaviator]

I could post a bunch more stories from the Frank Cheel era but I'll move on to the next phase of TWO which was from 1994 to around 2010 when Britt and GT owned the place. Britt was somehow related to Frank but I don't remember the details. Frank was getting old and didn't want to keep running TWO so he sold it to Britt and GT. Britt and GT came from California and had a background in the restaurant business. They took over in 94 and made some changes. The biggest change was turning TWO into a real restaurant. They continued to serve breakfast in the morning when they had guests staying there and added Friday dinner, Saturday lunch and dinner and Sunday lunch. If it was a holiday weekend they extended those meals through the holiday. This really changed the character of the place. Under Frank it was more a place for out of towners but now they got pretty big crowds of locals who would come up for the great riding in the area and stop at TWO for lunch or dinner.

Another big change was getting Satellite TV. They would often show Moto GP races in the lodge. Upstairs guests could now watch TV which IMO was a change for the worse. WIthout TV the guests would socialize and get to know each other. Now they could just sit in front of the TV and ignore each other.

Right off hand I can't find a pic with Britt and GT in it but I do have separate pics.

Britt:

GT (standing)

 

[hansong]

Did you ever run into Bill Rogers in Suches? We were both Atlanta-based at Eastern, and later at Ryan after the strike. Great guy. Didn't envy his drive to Hartsfield though.