jallen4717
Junior Member
Just finished a moto-camping trip from Peoria IL down into Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina.
I am going to do 5 separate posts for this thread (1 for each day).
My intention when leaving was to primitive camp all 4 nights mainly because I wanted to camp for free.
Day 1. Peoria IL to Frozen Head State Park, Wartburg, TN
Planned Miles: 588
Actual Miles: 620
I Left Peoria a little before 5:30 am. Just before I left I noticed that one of my head lights were out. But only when the low beams are on.:BLAA:
The ride from IL to TN is all interstate so it's quite boring. I did get to try out my frame sliders as highway pegs by laying my legs on them. This was helpful but the sliders could be a little longer. You still have to hold your legs on them so you cannot completely relax your legs. (I have the shorter OES sliders). I think the longer ones would do the trick.
Once I got into TN and off the interstate the road got interesting real quick. I rode the TN116 portion of the Devils Triangle. The road has some treacherous spots with gravel and dirt washout coming across the road from driveways. The big switch back curves on this road are true 1st gear corners. This is the only road I have felt I needed to be in 1st gear to be able to properly accelerate out of the corner. The road also has many unprotected drop-offs on both sides that really make you want to concentrate on what you're doing. Overall though, the road is quite fun. I didn't get many pictures here because there just wasn't many safe places to pull off.
After finishing the devils triangle I made my way to Frozen Head State Park and had about a .5 mile hike to my primitive camp site. I had to leave the bike in a parking lot under the cover with some of my gear in the tail bag. This did make me quite nervous but there is no way I could pack it all in. I brought along a military issue camelback and rigged up a way to attach my cortech sport saddle bags to the back of it so it was a back packing setup. I strapped my tent and sleeping bag to the top of that and threw my riding jack over the top and away I went into the woods. I am glad it was a short hike because that was not the best system for backpacking and it was heavy.
I made camp and had trouble getting a fire going so I got stuck eating cold hot dogs for dinner. It was getting dark and I still needed to find a spot to hang my food bag (bear country) so I found a spot downstream and got it hung just before dark. After that I came back and finally got a fire started and started to sip on the jar of Ole Smokey Moonshine that I picked up on my way there... (Only seemed fitting since I was in the region). Well that stuff was pretty good and I ended up downing the entire jar and woke up with a terrible headache. That was the first and last night I drank any alcohol.
Overall it was a good day of riding.
Day 2 coming soon...
I am going to do 5 separate posts for this thread (1 for each day).
My intention when leaving was to primitive camp all 4 nights mainly because I wanted to camp for free.
Day 1. Peoria IL to Frozen Head State Park, Wartburg, TN
Planned Miles: 588
Actual Miles: 620
I Left Peoria a little before 5:30 am. Just before I left I noticed that one of my head lights were out. But only when the low beams are on.:BLAA:
The ride from IL to TN is all interstate so it's quite boring. I did get to try out my frame sliders as highway pegs by laying my legs on them. This was helpful but the sliders could be a little longer. You still have to hold your legs on them so you cannot completely relax your legs. (I have the shorter OES sliders). I think the longer ones would do the trick.
Once I got into TN and off the interstate the road got interesting real quick. I rode the TN116 portion of the Devils Triangle. The road has some treacherous spots with gravel and dirt washout coming across the road from driveways. The big switch back curves on this road are true 1st gear corners. This is the only road I have felt I needed to be in 1st gear to be able to properly accelerate out of the corner. The road also has many unprotected drop-offs on both sides that really make you want to concentrate on what you're doing. Overall though, the road is quite fun. I didn't get many pictures here because there just wasn't many safe places to pull off.
After finishing the devils triangle I made my way to Frozen Head State Park and had about a .5 mile hike to my primitive camp site. I had to leave the bike in a parking lot under the cover with some of my gear in the tail bag. This did make me quite nervous but there is no way I could pack it all in. I brought along a military issue camelback and rigged up a way to attach my cortech sport saddle bags to the back of it so it was a back packing setup. I strapped my tent and sleeping bag to the top of that and threw my riding jack over the top and away I went into the woods. I am glad it was a short hike because that was not the best system for backpacking and it was heavy.
I made camp and had trouble getting a fire going so I got stuck eating cold hot dogs for dinner. It was getting dark and I still needed to find a spot to hang my food bag (bear country) so I found a spot downstream and got it hung just before dark. After that I came back and finally got a fire started and started to sip on the jar of Ole Smokey Moonshine that I picked up on my way there... (Only seemed fitting since I was in the region). Well that stuff was pretty good and I ended up downing the entire jar and woke up with a terrible headache. That was the first and last night I drank any alcohol.
Overall it was a good day of riding.
Day 2 coming soon...