Just a head's up that we have moved the rally date one week LATER than usual. It is now the FOURTH weekend in September, 2020, although as usual many of us are showing up earlier in the week.
Further, the rally is being held in BRISTOL, TN, official rally HQ being the Bristol KOA
http://koa.com/campgrounds/bristol/?utm_source=confirmation_nonvkr&utm_medium=email&utm_content=campground-website&utm_campaign=transactional_emails (http://koa.com/campgrounds/bristol/?utm_source=confirmation_nonvkr&utm_medium=email&utm_content=campground-website&utm_campaign=transactional_emails)
On the way to Shady Valley (421), north on 44 on the east side of South Holston Lake there's a really good breakfast buffet at the Painter Creek Marina Grille.
Don't know if it's a daily thing since I visited on a Saturday. This was back in July. You should have seen the looks from the "lake people" when 2 guys walked up in full Aerostich.
Kris & I have our site booked. We'll be there on Mon. See y'all there.
george
Sheila & Me booked the 'super-deluxe house cabin' Wed-Sunday :sarcastic:
.... looks like an easy ride down to Little Switzerland ... and over around Shady Valley, Damascus etc... haven't spent any time riding around this area really, what other must-do rides are down around these parts?
KOOKALOO!
Troy,
For the Fall 2018 Rally we chose Wytheville VA. We found some good roads and some boring roads. The best was The Back of the Dragon. Despite little pre-planning, I had fun. During this rally we obtained information on several new routes with "scary" names.
I put together the following summary of information on the scary roads, if we were to base out of the Bristol/Kingsport KOA. The information includes the name of the road, the length of the loop, the starting point of the loop, the time it takes to get to the starting point, and comments.
Scary Name Length (miles) Start Point Time to Start Comments
Back of Dragon 32 Marion, VA 1hr. 7 min Interstate, BTDT
Black Snake 129 Pennington Gap, VA 1 hr. NOT interstate
Bootlegger 145 Raven, VA 1 hr. 40 min. NOT interstate
Corkscrew 123 Coeburn, VA 1 hr. 9 min. NOT interstate
Daniel Boone 230 Kingsport, VA 0
Eagles Nest 90 Kyles Ford, TN 1 hr. 4 min. NOT interstate
Gargoyle 92 Rosedale, VA 1hr. 20 min. Not interstate
Heartbreaker 150 Castlewood, VA 1 hr. 5 min. NOT interstate
Panthers Breath 78 Clinchport, VA 31 min. NOT interstate
Road Runner 160 Gate City, VA 21 min. NOT interstate
Scorpion 183 Claypool Hill, VA 1 hr. 30 min. Interstate, BTDT
Skull Cracker 60 Gate City, VA 21 min. NOT interstate
Strippers Run 63 Wise, VA 1 hr. 15 min. NOT interstate, includes parts of Skull Cracker and/or Road Runner
Woodbooger 78 Big Stone Gap, VA 51 min. NOT interstate, includes parts of Black Snake and/or Eagles Nest
In my comments, interstate means we travel via interstate to get to the start of the route, and BTDT means we covered some of the same roads as we did during the Wytheville Rally.
Looking over the table, Gate City is 21 minutes away, and the routes starting there are Road Runner (160 miles) and Skull Cracker (60 miles). And a little further from Gate City are Strippers Run (63 miles) and Woodbooger (78 miles).
IF we ride to Clinchport, VA, 31 minutes away, we can pick up Panthers Breath (78 miles), Woodbooger (78 miles), and Eagles Nest (90 miles).
As you can see, some of the routes start near each other or have some overlap. More information about the roads can be found here;
https://www.appalachianbackroads.com/ (https://www.appalachianbackroads.com/)
Contemplating this rally.
Is there a list of attendees?
I see:
Dean+1?
TRoy and his Sheila,
George and Kris D. (haven't seen you guys in decades)
Carey + Henry?
Nancy and I will be there.
After talking with Carey today, I googled Tenn, Va and NC and none of them have any covid travel restrictions a la what NY is doing. It will be great to get to a rally after this spring's shut down of the Boone rally.
Jack
Quote from: carey on August 10, 2020, 06:04:00 PM
I put together the following summary of information on the scary roads,
Haha, Awesome Carey thanks :good2: ... we can always count on you to do the homework :sarcastic: see yuns in a few weeks !
Woo Hoo, the east coast fall rally is only a month way! Need to know if I should load up my gas grill in the RV for the rally. Willing to do a cook out one night (or more if necessary) if folks so desire. Can be simple like brats and beans or steaks and fixins. I'm to the point that I couldn't give a sh*t anymore...just want to get my normal on! Like I said ...Kookaloo !!! :yahoo:
Anyone seen a long range weather forecast?
QuoteAnyone seen a long range weather forecast?
Rainbows and unicorns, as usual :blum2:
Quote from: Motofun on August 24, 2020, 05:36:30 PM
Need to know if I should load up my gas grill in the RV for the rally. Willing to do a cook out one night (or more if necessary) if folks so desire. ...Kookaloo !!!
Absotively / Posilutely ! :good2: I'm stoked
Quote from: FJ_Hooligan on September 09, 2020, 02:22:20 PM
Anyone seen a long range weather forecast?
Now you've gone and done it. Rain the entire time.
Kris & I can't wait. I'm about ready to play hookie from work for the next week or so.
George
Just booked a room at the Econo Lodge around the corner from the KOA.
Arriving Wednesday morning 9-23 and checking out on Sunday 9-27 for the long drive back
Staying 9-20 to 9-23 (Sun, Mon, and Tues) at Tellico
Hi folks, just to let you know that I am in St Louis Mo until 10/27.
My wife Peta and I are here as she is having a medical procedure at Mercy Hospital tomorrow.
I will be pretty much house bound for a week or 2 for her post surgery.
Aviationfred will hopefully be calling in on the way to the ECFR and possibly on the way back to Wichita too.
It would be great to meet anyone else in the area or is heading east thru Mo to the rally.
Just PM me for my cell number
Cheers
Harvy
Harvy, check your PM please
I don't know about the weather or the roads, but we'll eat well. I have 2 pans of home-made lasagna, and a bundt coffee cake to pack. I have a limited number of forks and spoons, so stock up :yes:
Quote from: carey on September 21, 2020, 03:43:04 PM
we'll eat well. I have 2 pans of home-made lasagna, and a bundt coffee cake to pack.
Henry will eat all that before you guys get there . Don't forget the mountain pie cookers.. I'll make a grocery store run to get the apples & cherries :)
TRoy, I didn't pack the mountain pie makers because I don't think there will be any big fires. We'll make other arrangements
Quote from: carey on September 21, 2020, 10:33:30 PM
I don't think there will be any big fires.
Challenge accepted
Well, the weekend weather outlook has some promise. I bet it's going to be beautiful there.
I wish I could make this one, I'm beyond ready, and I know we all missed Boone. But I can't do it this weekend.
Take pictures. Make me jealous. I promise I'll be happy for you guys. I'll look north and see if I can see the bonfire from here. I will settle for taking each bike out for an hour to get everything warmed up, and maybe I'll finally install the turn signal lenses George sent me last winter.
I'll ping my usual group and see if any of my eurotrash friends and family can make it; Stu and Bruce (Guzzi guy) are in different parts of Charlotte and either one could make it as a day trip. Paul is 5 hours away, a long ride on a Scrambler, but he might be ready to get out of town for a while. Andrew may or may not have his 916 fully sorted; it had an intermittent electrical issue when we rode together a few weeks ago.
Made it home a couple hours ago. I had a great time. I got to ride all or parts of the following scary name roads (not in any particular order);
Black Snake, Eagles Nest, Gargoyle, Heartbreaker, Panther's Breath, Road Runner, Skull Cracker, and Stripper's Run.
Saw a bear cub on 160 while riding from Appalachia, VA to Cumberland, KY. The Bristol/Kingsport KOA was nice, but the $30/day linen fee was ridiculous, and not mentioned when I made my reservation. The location of the KOA was a minimum of 30 minutes from any route we rode. It did not require an interstate, but my GPS did take us through some subdivision.
Home and gald was able to ride rather than sitting home and watching tv. COVID 19, at least in my area is nothing to take a second look at, so I had doubts of even attending. Nice to see friendly faces and get the bike on the road for a change. Other than just riding back in forth to work on occasion..
Nancy and I made it home last evening about 5:30....10 and a half hours...yech. Had a great time even with 2 rainy days...they just turn into group campfire sessions. :good2:
Kris, Alex and I made it home late Sunday, almost 12 hours of driving. Spent Monday recovering from the drive with rain in the Detroit area. The rally was good in spite of the rain and no big bonfire. :^) the roads in that area seem to be pretty good also. It was good to see everyone again. Looking forward to Boone in the Spring.
Arkansas was awesome on Friday, got 320 miles in. The 13-hour drive to get there, no so great.
Total mileage for 2 days riding in Tellico, TN, 1/2 day ride in Kingsport, TN, and full day ride out of Clarksville, AR was right at 1000 miles. Some great twisty roads in all areas.
I was really looking forward to hanging out with the group in the afterhours, but not sitting through 2 days of rain. :-(
I need to make this happen again.
Oh yeah, headed back to Arkansas with my local group for 4 more days next week!
FWIW, While at the rally, I was randomly selected by my employer for a covid test. I finally got the test completed on Thursday, October 1st. I didn't have much time to study, but I was negative :good2: