July 18 - 19, 2015
July 18th
First things first…
Breakfast!
At 7:30 we headed off to
Meadows of Dan and the Poor Farmer’s Market for breakfast.
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| Country breakfast at the Poor Farmers Market |
Once we were all satisfied
and reinvigorated we headed out to enjoy Jim’s Invisible Roads. We used the BRP
as our not so invisible road to get to the really good stuff.
After leaving the BRP we
wound around all throughout the Blue Ridge Plateau area on roads with big
sweeping turns to narrow tight and technical twisty turns.
Judith had been a little
concerned that she would be the slowest and weakest rider of the group, but her
concern was for not. She was right there with all of us and over the day her
skill through corners was greatly improved. She got a bunch of compliments from
everyone.
Jim was also kind enough to
provide some of his secret sauce riding tips to Judith, even though this was
not a real workshop.
At some point we encountered
a bit of rain, but not enough to cause too much concern. The sun came out later
and we all dried off pretty fast.
Here are a few of our stops...
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| The Country Store at Big Walker Lookout. Yep - Confederate flags still fly in many places. |
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| If you wanted to do so you could climb this tower for a view to NYC I think. We did not try... |
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| We did have this view from the Country Store |
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| Looking out towards Tazewell, VA |
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| Paul, Treavor, Jim Judith, Dennis |
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| An Amish General Store in the beautiful valley of Burkes Garden |
At the end of the day we had
about 225 miles in of 80% super roads.
We cleaned up and had a
session at the Red Chair Society before going to Mickey G's Bistro &
Pizzeria, a wonderful Italian restaurant in Floyd.
July 19th
Once again – first things
first… Breakfast!
Breakfast was in a different
spot today and I have forgotten the name and no pictures.
We took the same approach
today as we did yesterday – BRP to the good stuff.
More new and great roads
once again…
At one point we were on
highway 58 (a road where I had crashed a few years ago), going up the hill
through a series of very tight switchbacks, when the heavens opened up. After a
small bit of thought we turned back down the hill and through the same switchbacks in a
pretty heavy rain.
However, at the turnaround
point Judith suffered a small incident. Actually it was not a big deal, but
rather a Laugh In kind of tip over when she went to put her foot down on a
sloping side of the road and the slop was a little too much – so she found nothing
but air. This popped the left side mirror off and broke the tip of the clutch
lever. No damage to Judith however (other than her pride), so that was good.
Once back at the bottom of
the hill the rain stopped and we stopped for lunch and to dry out our gear.
After lunch I “MacGyvered”
the mirror back on to Judith’s bike, so all was good and off we went for more
fun. Judith’s tip over didn’t faze her in the least and she was still improving
through the twisty roads. We even had a half mile or so of gravel road she conquered.
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| Me - MacGyvering Judith's mirror |
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| We had a break here early morning |
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| Nuff said... |
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| I've had Red Stripe Beer, but not gas. |
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| Heading down another nice road |
At the end of second
225-mile day we repeated our ritual of unwinding at the Red Chair Society. Then
one more go to the Pine Tavern Restaurant for unbelievably good Southern food.
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