Chicago to Deals Gap

tejkowskit

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This past week I took my first long bike trip. Me and my buddy left on Monday (8/1) and arrived at deals gap the next day. We left Friday (8/5) and made it home the next day. Total mileage was 1845 miles. I only took pictures while in Tennesee/N. Carolina. Pictures of Illinois and Indianna would only bore you.

Day 1
The first day we left around 10:00am and made it to Nashville at around 6:30. 481 miles the first day.

Here we are pumping gas gettin ready to get on the highway.
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Once we arrived in Nashville we stopped for food right away and then found a campground.

Day 2
The next day we checked out the Opry hotel in Nashville.

This place was huge!
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After the Opry we stopped at Bass Pro to get a few extra bunjee's and small packable pillows. Back on the road. We left Nashville around 9:30 and got to Deals Gap by 1. 210 miles.

Here is a picture from the Cherohala Skyway convenience store.
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We rode the dragon right away, and let me say, it is freakin awesome! No roads near me come close to that. After we stopped at the convenience store for gas and info on good camp grounds, we headed out to explore the best campsite. We found one that was perfect.

Here are a few pictures of the view from the campsite we stayed at the first 2 nights. Nothing like waking up to this view!
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The water was perfect temperature and we enjoyed a few beers before going to sleep.
 
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tejkowskit

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Day 3
The next day we got a TON of riding in. We rode the Cherohala Skyway and the dragon. Here are a bunch of pictures from the Skyway.
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tejkowskit

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I had really wanted to see a blackbear while i was in the mountains, and just as I had wished, we saw one today while riding the skyway early in the morning. My friend though it was a cougar?? so he didn't want to stop and kept riding to scare it away. Unfortunately I did not get to take a picture..

And the river towards the end of the skyway
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After the skyway we rode the dragon.
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Tree of Shame
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Our bikes parked at the resort. (Thats my buddy in the pic w/ his '82 Virago)
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Sweet curve
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Gotta love seeing signs like these
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tejkowskit

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Here is my bike at a spot to pull over after riding the tail of the dragon. These are 2 of my favorites.
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Another awesome view from a scenic overlook on US129
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We saw this bridge on our way back to the campsite and thought it looked cool!
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Back at the campsite for the end of day 3. We decided to jump in the lake after a long hot day. Here are some pictures of the rock we were jumping off.
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Front flip
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Sunset
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We got hit with a really bad storm this night, but luckily nothing blew away or got damaged. It was a neat experience seeing a storm in the mountains too. Tons of thunder and lightning. I also found out my tent is not 100% waterproof, but it kept us more dry than if we didn't have one..
 

tejkowskit

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Day 4 was a long day. We went back out onto the Cherohala Skyway in search of a place to park the bikes safely while we did some backpacking. The plan was to wander into the Nantahala National Forest and camp in there for a night. After searching for a few hours we couldn't find a legitimate spot to park the bikes and still be close to trails to hike. So instead we found some dirt trails and decided to explore those.
Who said a couple of street bikes cant offroad?!
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Here I am takin a break in the forest
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Turns out we found a pretty damn good campsite at the end of one of these trails. We set up camp and rode along Tellico River Rd. which was nearby our camp.

Campsite
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Tellico River Rd. is really beautiful and I higly recommend it to anyone going out there. It is very scenic.
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A little further down the road there was another decent size waterfall. I didn't get a picture of it as I was to busy jumping off. There was also a really huge cliff I decided to jump off. This was one of the most fun parts of the trip.
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Here is a blurry picture of me jumping off. The camera wasn't on the right setting :/
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Once we were done there we headed back to camp for dinner and to make a fire. We went to bed with plans to leave the next day.

Day 5
We rode the tail of the dragon 4 more times before heading out back to Chicago. It is impossible to get sick of that stretch of road! We made it to Boonesboro, Ky, where we camped for the night. On the way to Boonesboro I saw 2 FZ6's. (if you guys read this that was me on I75 headed north on the blue FZ). Unfortunately we got rained on that night so it forced us into the tent pretty early.

Day 6
Left Boonesboro and made it back home in about 7 hours.


For my first long trip I can honestly say it was better than I had expected. I knew it would be awesome, but it really exceeded what I had in mind. My advice to anyone who is interested in going to ride the dragon; go during the week! Every other rider I talked to there said it gets crowded during the weekends and there are a lot of cops out! While I was there we only saw cops on the road twice and although there were a lot of other bikers, It was not too congested. I also had no run-ins with idiotic riders like you see on Killboy.
 
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Kazza

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Nice pics. Thanks for sharing.

Tree of shame - recognised a piece from an SP-1 (RC-51) - used to have one in the garage :thumbup:
 

DefyInertia

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Nice! I especially like that you hit some dirt roads and hit the dragon 4 more times before leaving....gotta do it, right?

Awesome trip...all that slab between Chicago and TN is killer though, huh? I used to live in Chicago and make the trek down a back a few times.

How did your buddy do on that '82 in the twisties?
 

tejkowskit

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Nice! I especially like that you hit some dirt roads and hit the dragon 4 more times before leaving....gotta do it, right?

Awesome trip...all that slab between Chicago and TN is killer though, huh? I used to live in Chicago and make the trek down a back a few times.

How did your buddy do on that '82 in the twisties?
Ya know, he was actually flyin through there almost keeping up with me! I was impressed. He is crazy though, haha. A couple times when I was riding behind him I heard him scrape pretty bad. No one ever got jammed up behind us. We were gettin stuck behind the slow harley riders and cagers.
 

tejkowskit

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Looks like you guys had a great time. I really hope to put something like this together one day. Thanks for sharing.
You really should, you wont regret it! Just remember not to go during the weekend. Also, the earlier in the day you ride it the better. The cost of the trip between gas, food, and camping was all under 300 dollars!
 
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mxgolf

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Friggin awesome. Looks like a great time and you seemed to do it right. Thanks for the ride report and great pictures. :thumbup:
 
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