Memorial Day Weekend Trip Through the Smokies

[Kajota]

I just completed 1800 miles from Va to Ga and back over the Memorial day weekend. The '05 speed triple worked well as a touring bike. Unfortunately the rear tire didn't make the whole trip.

If you ever get the chance, ride the roads in the NC/Tennessee/Ga area. They are fantastic.

Props to mad maps for showing us some great roads

Mad Maps

pics:

Memorial Day 2005 Trip

[ This message was edited by: Kajota on 2006-08-04 19:01 ]

[crudmop]

I did a similar trip last year on my 6r, down thru ny,nj,pa,wv,va,nc,tn - the south side of the BRP is absolutely awesome (how cool are those tunnels ), and the Cherahola is a dream.

How was the dragon? I know they were having a few problems with people purposely pouring oil over large sections of the road, hopefully you didn't run into any of that mess. F'n Slime.


Great pics, thanks for sharing!

[Catenaccio]

Drove the same roads two years ago. Incredible scenery. Always beautiful! Brings back great memories. Thanks for the pics.

[mth5112]

[quote]
On 2005-06-07 15:42, Kajota wrote:
I just completed 1800 miles from Va to Ga and back over the Memorial day weekend. The '05 speed triple worked well as a touring bike. Unfortunately the rear tire didn't make the whole trip.

Wow! Did the tire just part in the middle like that? Michelin should be made aware.

I've been through most of that country on a bike other than the S3. I would have enjoyed looking at a few close ups of your touring rig. How stable was your rear pack? Looks like you used the bag's bungees to connect to the passenger peg struts at the front. How did you connect it at the rear? Was your brake light obscured? Doesn't look like much side to side security. (??) What kind of tank bag are you using? It looks small but better than the Triumph offering.

You're a big guy. Doesn't look like the kit you were wearing would've fit in your tail bag. Did you get uncomfortably hot?

Michael

[Kajota]

On 2005-06-07 22:26, crudmop wrote:
I did a similar trip last year on my 6r, down thru ny,nj,pa,wv,va,nc,tn - the south side of the BRP is absolutely awesome (how cool are those tunnels ), and the Cherahola is a dream.

How was the dragon? I know they were having a few problems with people purposely pouring oil over large sections of the road, hopefully you didn't run into any of that mess. F'n Slime.


Great pics, thanks for sharing!

Cherahola was very nice. The dragon is a good road but after all the other great roads that we were on, it was anti-climatic. It's not really my kind of road and we got to it at about 4pm after riding since 8am (3 hours of that in the rain). The condition of the dragon was really good. We had no problem with oil and the traffic was light. I only had to pass 2 cars on the whole road.

The best road of the trip was the Devil's Triangle (according to the mad maps). It's northwest of Oak Ridge, TN.

[Kajota]

[quote]
On 2005-06-07 22:55, mth5112 wrote:

On 2005-06-07 15:42, Kajota wrote:
I just completed 1800 miles from Va to Ga and back over the Memorial day weekend. The '05 speed triple worked well as a touring bike. Unfortunately the rear tire didn't make the whole trip.

Wow! Did the tire just part in the middle like that? Michelin should be made aware.

I've been through most of that country on a bike other than the S3. I would have enjoyed looking at a few close ups of your touring rig. How stable was your rear pack? Looks like you used the bag's bungees to connect to the passenger peg struts at the front. How did you connect it at the rear? Was your brake light obscured? Doesn't look like much side to side security. (??) What kind of tank bag are you using? It looks small but better than the Triumph offering.

You're a big guy. Doesn't look like the kit you were wearing would've fit in your tail bag. Did you get uncomfortably hot?

Michael

The tire was worn all over. More in the middle. I think I may have rubbed off a bit too much tread when I locked up the rear brake during an emergency stop in KY. (a minivan made a U-turn from the right shoulder across the 2 right lanes of traffic on a 4 lane highway).

The tank bag is an RKA tank bag. It expands more than shows in my pictures.

RKA Tankbag

I put a rectangular piece of wood on the bottom of the tail bag to give it a bit of stability. I ended up connecting the bungees in the front to the boot guards and in the back I connected them to the brackets that hold the two red side reflectors. It stayed on with no problems for the whole trip. The only problem I had with it is that the plastic hook for the front bungie on the right side started to rest against the exhaust and began to melt. I stopped at a 7-11, bought some aluminum foil and wrapped the hook in that and that fixed that problem.

The weather was actually very mild (and cold in the mornings) for the whole trip. The pants and jacket would definitely not fit in that tail bag. I carried some jeans, T-shirts, socks etc in the tail bag and changed into that whenever we stopped for the day.

I'll take some closer pictures of the tail bag and how it's connected to the bike when I get a chance.