Spring arrives earlier here in the South then in most places. The trees are starting to bud out, the wild flowers are coming up, and most importantly the weather is much more favorable for riding. Even though the arrival of spring is early here there is still the rider’s funk we all get into over the winter. It seems as though our rider brains go into hibernation and the adventurous side takes a back seat. More of our rides become about the preferable warm destination and not so much about what most certainly is the trek into hell which is the journey to get to that destination. There could be a multitude of reasons why but, for me it just seems to suck the fun right out of it when preparation for a ride includes taking frostbite precautions.

Even with the warming of the weather this funk prevails and we plan most of our rides with only the destination being the major point of consideration and take the shortest, easiest route to get there. This tendency doesn’t seem to fade until about two months into the heavy riding season at which point we have already missed two great months of riding. Here are some ideas of places to ride in the South where at this time of year you are sure to have a memorable trip. If you live in the South and never have done these rides, or if you live further away, these are simply some of the most wonder places to take the ones we love. Your wife (or husband) can come too.

The Blue Ridge Parkway

There are fewer places on the planet where you can still feel like you riding in true wilderness, but for some that is exactly the feeling while riding the Blue Ridge Parkway although you are never very far away from populated areas. The Parkway is a National Parkway and one of the ultimate riding trips that should be on everyone’s list of things to see. It runs from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee, North Carolina. If you ride the entire length from north to south is it about 470 miles and can be done all at once or you can pick the stretch that fits best logistically. The ride is not difficult as the roadway is well maintained and the scenery invites you to ride slow and make many stops. Check the link below if you are interested in more information.

Blue Ridge Parkway Site

There are one or two words of caution though. The first is that if you ride the parkway early in the spring, you may find that some sections are closed due to snow. A list of section closings can be found by going to the Blue Ridge Parkway website as they post the status of road closures there. Second is that if you are riding on a Sunday, the name of the road changes from the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Blue Hair Parkway. If your idea of a good time doesn’t include staring at the backs of multiple Cadillac’s and Lincoln’s with nothing visible of the driver except hair and knuckles on the steering wheel you would be best to do this ride during the week.

Highway 129, A.K.A.. Deals Gap or The Dragon’s Tail

If you are looking to kick off the riding season with a bang, take a trip down Highway 129 just outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. This section of road is know as the Dragon’s Tail and is Mecca for sport bike and cruiser riders alike due to the absolutely beautiful area in which it is located as well as the 318 turns over its 11 mile distance. On any given day you can find as many various styles, makes, and models of motorcycles as have ever been made. This ride is not for the novice. You truly need to have a good handle on your machine as well as good situational awareness. The riding community is very protective of this stretch of road and is highly critical of those that don’t have there stuff in one sock. Make sure to check out several of the web sites as they will tell you the etiquette required to have best and safest ride. This doesn’t mean that you have to be an expert rider to go there; it just means that you need to know what you’re doing or at least be willing to learn. Due to the know numbers of folks that slightly exceed the posted speed limit on the Tail, law enforcement presence is high. Fortunately, the riding community alerts the presence of the cops like a pack of Meerkats spotting a lion on the African planes and unless you don’t have ears, usually those that get busted are the ones that truly deserve it. Don’t let any of this scare you off; this is a ride that you can’t miss.

There are many web sites for the Tail of the Dragon, but this one is my favorite. Make sure to spend some time on the site and check out the awesome pictures these guys take. By the way, if you ride the Tail at certain times, you can buy your very own Cycle World style picture from them at a very reasonable price.  

Killboy.com

Wilmington, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia via Hwy 17

While curvy roads, shear roadside drops, and gorgeous vistas tend to be frequent features found on everyone’s lists of where to ride, the South offers another option; the coast. Riding down 310 miles of the Atlantic Coast from Wilmington, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia is like stepping outside of what is normally thought of as modern America and back to days gone by. Much of the southern coast still harkens of the “Old South” with plantation homes, fishing / shrimping villages, and all of the history that revolves around the birth of our country not to mention the Civil War. This easily is a ride that can be turned into a true vacation. Taking Hwy 17 south towards Myrtle Beach and onward through Charleston, Beaufort, and Hilton Head, South Carolina ending up in Savannah, Georgia you give you ample opportunity to experience southern culture at its finest. If you can plan your ride around March 14^th, St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah is an event that you certainly don’t want to miss. Many have said that St. Patties Day in Savannah can only be outdone by the festival held in Chicago. Although it is a little later, the Myrtle Beach Bike Week is held May 9-18^th.  All of the cities on this ride have something to offer up to the interests of everyone and you would be sure to have a wonderful experience. Here are the links to information sites for the major cities along the route so that you can check out all that they have to offer.

Wilmington, NC

Myrtle Beach, SC

Charleston, SC

Beaufort, SC

Hilton Head, SC

Savannah, GA

With nature turning new, now is the best time to have a new start to the way we enter the riding season while most are still just trying to think of somewhere to go. Have fun and enjoy the ride. Until next time…

By: T.C. "Sir Yvain" Gore

We see or hear the grim reminders far too often. Whether it’s a second hand story about some unfortunate soul, an eyewitness account, or disturbingly graphic images from any of the many Internet sites that post uncensored motorcycle crash videos or pictures of their aftermath. Chances are, everyone who reads this has at least heard the gory details of a bike crash. But, with this being posted on a motorcycle website, most of the people who read this (they, likely to be bikers – a.k.a. "Motorcycle Enthusiasts") will have had an eyewitness account or first hand information about a crash, or know someone personally who is either ‘riding that great big chopper in the sky’, or who is unable to ride anymore due to the physical or the psychological damage they suffered in their crash. Some of you reading this may know that person to be yourself.

Like some of you, I am one of those fortunate people who took a spill and came out of it alive, and in my case, alive with the burning agony of road rash. The good fortune is that I survived "learning the hard way".

In a continuous line, varied in width, from my right wrist, up my arm, over my shoulder, down my back and onto the top portion of my right ass cheek, (how it got way over there I still don’t know) there lay a swath of grizzly flesh (hamburger meat as we call it). It was speckled through and through with tiny bits of gravel, grit, and sparkly stuff that must have been glass, along with rubber dust and whatever else that would stick to the pasty wet flesh where my skin used to cover me. Even now, at my ripe age, I can clearly recall every detail of that event, which took place over 25 years ago. Much to the same effect that I can clearly recall every detail of the day my toe got crushed in a door hinge when I was merely two. As I think in silent objection, "Where the hell has all that time gone?" I can even recall the lie I told my parents… that I had fallen off a skateboard when its wheels jammed on a rock while rolling down a hill. Quite frankly, I was in enough pain and didn’t want to suffer an ass whooping too.

Since wisdom comes with age, (though sadly not for all of us and rarely is it ever on time) I can look back and see that this crash took place largely because I didn’t fully understand what I was doing. Sure, I could lock up the back tire at high speed, skid more than a hundred feet fishtailing in a man vs. machine dance of daring, release the rear brake while safely avoiding the torque that could catapult me trough the air like a pea off a plastic spoon. But there were other things I just didn’t know, know-it-all that I was. Likewise, you think I would have learned not to be so nuts-o after hearing how my cousin bent his left leg while doing stunts on a dirt bike (more accurately… unsuccessfully doing stunts). And by the way, that was not a typo… he bent his femur. Just enough force was exerted to bring the bone to the verge of snapping and subsided without breaking it. It is the literal sense of almost breaking it (and here you though "almost" only counted with horseshoes and hand grenades). The odd thing about my crash though, is that I wasn’t running rampant at the time. I wasn’t trying any stunts or engaging in reckless craziness spawn of youthful invincibility. I was cruising at a pretty good clip, but nothing beyond that.

But, the point here (if there really is a point) is not to fill your head with gory tales of life-changing and life-ending crashes, or go on and on bragging about my war wounds while proudly displaying my scars afloat a sea of testosterone. Nor is it to tell you how close I came to having the local Volunteer Rescue Squad spend their late afternoon picking tiny pieces of me from the bark of an Oak tree the same way I picked the tiny specks of gravel from my arm. After all, I am not trying to deter you from riding.

Now, this may not seem relevant, but bear with me. You see… in the 60’s we said, "Man this is the 60’s". The 70’s came and we did it again, "Man this is the 70’s". The 80’s and 90’s were the same. Each decade came and went, and with each passing we suggested that in the previous decade we didn’t know squat. But as this trend continues, there will come a day when we will no longer be saying, "Man, this is the New Millennium." We will say, "These are the New Teens" (or something to that effect), and once again it will suggest that in the previous decade we didn’t know Jack. Well, if come the future we look back to what is now the present and suggest that we didn’t know squat, then we can safely fess up to the fact that we don’t know squat now.

I work for a railroad. During my time in this industry, and much to my amazement, I have found that the guys who get creamed by trains are not the new hires. Rather, they are the ones who have been working there the longest - twenty and thirty plus years on the rail. Simply put, the new hires are most alert to the new dangers and the veterans are so accustomed to the dangers that they have become complacent. There are other factors like "work engrossment", where your work is so involved that you are distracted from where you are. Then, seemingly out of the blue… Wham! You might think all of that would be the other way around.

So, what do these things have to do with riding motorcycles? I hope you didn’t have to ask that question, because it should be obvious enough. I know when I first venture out onto the highway I was hesitant to come out of the right lane. Though, little by little, I have progressed from cautious to something more aggressive.

Apart from things that are beyond your control, there are a host of simple things that are:

- Don’t let your experience as a rider betray you. Don’t let it con you into being complacent. Always perform your pre-trip inspection. Don’t assume everything is working. How sad it would be to find out you got maimed or killed because a two-dollar brake or turn signal bulb was out, or that you flew off the road to the same demise because your tire pressure or tread was too low, or even worse, from an oil leak.

- As you sit upon your iron steed, remember; traction is one of your biggest allies. Without it, you are an accident waiting to happen. You only have a certain amount of traction available to you, based on your tire condition and pressure. Cold tires have less traction; so warm them up before lacing into the road. Accelerating, braking, and turning all consume a portion of the traction you have available to you. When you combine braking or acceleration with turning, your loss of traction is compounded by both. Most single vehicle motorcycle accidents happen from misjudging a curve and the equation is typically that you come in too fast and brake while leaning in the turn. The traction threshold is exceeded and down you go. Not to mention the unexpected road hazards like sand and other traction robbing conditions.

- Never overdrive your headlights at night. However far you can see with them translates into how fast you should ride. Adjust your speed so that your stopping distance is less than your viewing distance. You have the moment you see something in the glow of your lights, added to your reaction time, added to your stopping distance, and if you can’t get all of that done within the distance enveloped by headlight illumination, then you had better be able to take other evasive action.

- Don’t ride in a really bad mood. Your emotions will come out in the way you handle your bike (tell me you never cranked the throttle hard when you were angry). Also don’t let something that is on your mind distract you from what you are doing while riding. Rather, make it the other way around. Focus on every aspect of your ride so that it distracts you from what is bothering you. This in fact is one of the great escapes that riding has to offer. Use it.

- Use the defensive tactic of S.E.E. (Search, Evaluate, Execute). Always assume that no one sees you. You are a gazelle in a sea of tigers. Don’t end up in their grill.

There are two parts of the human body where skin cannot be grafted, the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. How many accident scenes have you seen where a sneaker or shoe was lying in the road, where someone was literally knocked out of his or her shoes? It is very common. How much protection do you think a sock will offer you? I saw pictures of a kid’s foot, which after his bike went down in a simple spill was trapped against the road under his bike as he slid. His laces were not tied and his boot was pulled off. Can you say "reconstructive surgery"? Wear boots that come over your ankles, and take the time to lace them up or secure them properly. New boots are less expensive compared to a new foot.

When an object flies at your face, your eye will snap shut. It is an involuntary reflex. It is the body’s self-defense mechanism to protect the eye. At 50mph there is no seeing a bug on a collision coarse with your eye, and even if you do see it at the last moment, it will be painfully in your eye before it can snap shut. How well can you ride your bike blindfolded? You can’t. So don’t let something rob you of your sight after you are already going 50mph. Put on some impact safety glasses at the very least. Better yet, use something that will keep the dust out too.

The same goes for when you trip and fall; reflexively your hands fly out in front of you to break the fall. If you fall down on your bike, your reflex will be to put out your hand(s). These reflexes are very hard to consciously override. When your hand slides on the pavement, skin will be removed. Remember that it cannot be grafted at all. So why not take the time to put on a pair of leather gloves?

Most of the stuff I mentioned here, you might already know. That is OK. Take this as a friendly reminder of the stuff you may have forgotten or dared to ignore. If any of this is new to you, then even better. Knowledge is power. Now use it.

But be honest with yourself when I ask how many times you rode with out checking this stuff? How much of it have you dismissed through the complacency of experience and thinking nothing bad will happen? If nothing ever did, then you dodged the bullet. Good for you. I’m glad to see you are still here. Just remember, there are a lot of bullets out there. How long before you bite one? But for that matter… How many times did you walk down the stairs without using the banister? How may times did you walk down the side walk and not realize that the tiny little 6" curb that separates you from the road will not stop a car from getting on the sidewalk with you? There are dangers abound in our daily lives that we hardly even think of.

I’m not telling you not to walk down the stairs or the sidewalk because it could prove deadly, nor am I telling you not to ride your scoot. I only want to remind you to be and stay aware.

You don’t know how many times I have seen someone riding in low-top sneakers, shorts, and a cheap pair of mirrored sun glasses, let alone those daredevils who show off riding a 70mph wheelie down the parkway in traffic. Well, if you want to go100mph, standing on your seat, naked as a j-bird, then that is up to you. (Mind you, I have seen a video of someone doing this and I find it unimaginable that this person did not first mentally compare sliding down the pavement in full leather to sliding down the pavement in his own hide before trying it. As much fun as it must have seemed at the time, he learned the hard way what it feels like to loose skin… a lot of it.) I suppose that so long as you are only putting yourself in danger, it remains your choice, however foolish it may be. Just remember those famous last words… "This is gonna be great!"

The bottom line here is this; everything about riding a motorcycle boils down to the amount of risk you are willing to take. Even riding unto itself is a risk. But even if you understand that, you may not be looking beyond it. Do yourself and the ones you love a favor and look beyond the risk into the consequence of the risk. Personally, I feel safety should not be weighed against the likelihood of a bad event happening. Rather, it should be weighed against the outcome of that event should it actually happen. Do not allow your experience, or the desire to get out there and ride today, make you forgo simple precautions that only take a few moments. Focus on the desire to ride again and again, tomorrow and thereafter, to keep yourself diligent in remembering and practicing all of this basic stuff. You don’t want to learn the hard way… for that teacher can be very cruel and unforgiving.

James "Dragonfire"  Hetem

Things I've learned about Harleys and Beemers and those that ride them; The Coalescence of One Ride.
By T.C. Gore

As with all great epic tails that lead to deeper understanding you have to know a little of the history of the characters. My story starts about 8 years ago when a very good friend of mine bought a 1997 Heritage Softtail. This was my first real peek into the world of the Harley rider. I started riding dirt bikes when I was a kid and my dad taught me how to ride street bikes on a 1970 BMW R65/5 "Toaster Tank" when I was 15. So my opinion of Harleys was slightly skewed akin to the way that a corporate executive might view a blue color worker only to find out after getting to know them that, at heart, they have all of the same traits which make them good at what they do.

So, the long of the short of it is that Harley riders and Beemer riders are really very much alike, but we often let our misconceptions get in the way of what is the common thread that binds us; the love of the motorcycle and the ride. Never forget the joy of the road stretching out in front of you, or those that share that joy with you. Until next time......