LOL regder, I'm sure some of the guys back east would say you are selling the riding out there short. Since we were going to TN anyway to see Lytehouse's brothers, trailering the bikes instead of flying sounded like a good idea.
We pretty much spend May through October riding the CO mountains and have experienced parts of every state in the west and a little bit of Canada (still lots more to explore though). I've never ridden east of the Colorado/Kansas border except for a quick trip to Lincoln, NE where I bought my Ducati. I've driven east a number of times and just thinking of riding across eastern CO, Kansas or any other state bordering CO to the east makes my butt hurt, but if I'm going to be near the Smokies anyway, it would be nice to have the bikes.
Cleveland, TN seemed to be getting warm (high 70's) by the last half of April, so that seemed like the earliest we would go, knowing that the mountains would be a bit cooler. We have lots of experience with that in CO, but I'm assuming the temp change is not as drastic since our mountain passes are 12,000+ft. I was hoping to avoid rain as much as possible, and since the saying is "April showers bring May flowers", was concerned that late April may be rushing it a bit.