2015 Transam Trail Days 6-8

Day 6, 8/23: On the trail, still shaking down the gear
Odometer start: 8622
Odometer finish: 8787
Miles: 165
TAT Mile Marker: 36

At 3:30am I awoke from a spritz of water on my face. Turning on my flashlight I saw a lot of water on the inside of the tent and figured it was just a condensation on my single wall tent, not the rain outside making its way in. A large rain drop must have hit the tent on the outside and knocked some into my face. As I lay there I felt more drops on my arms, my face, and heard them landing elsewhere in the tent. Turning on the flashlight I saw that everything was getting soaked.

Emegency quick-pack of everything in the tent (took almost an hour), pack it ok the bike and ride into town. I wasn’t the only vehicle coming down the remote road to the campground, it appeared others got rained out as well. I left the tent, some food and several other odds and ends to pick up later. I arrived on the outskirts of Asheville just before 6am and grabbed breakfast while I contemplated my next move. I decided to head to REI when they opened at 11am (glad they are open on Sunday). 20 minutes later I left with a can of water repellant refresher, seam sealer and seam adhesive.

The weather forecast called for scattered showers but warm temperatures. I took the Blue Ridge Parkway a few dozen miles south and west, not thinking about it being at 5,000-6,000 feet elevation for much of the ride. The scenery was amazing: riding in and out of sunshine and rain, fog and clear. As nice as the ride was, I was glad when it was time to descend from the higher elevations of the Parkway so I could regain feeling in my fingers.

The rest of the ride to Andrews was gorgeous. The sky was clearing, the sun coming out and it warmed up just right. I passed the Nantahala Outdoor Center, a favorite of Denise’s and mine, snapped a picture, walked around a bit and bid farewell until 2017 when we plan to pass through on our thru-hike!

Arriving in Andrews, NC, I hit a convenience store for gas. This was one of those stores where the locals stream in to buy beer, smokes and lottery tickets all day. One guy was obviously high. A pair of girls walked by, one telling the other “you scare me when you talk to your man like that when he’s drunk”. I decided I didn’t want to know more and rode out.

The trail starts at an arbitrary point on the road, there is no sign or other marker so I took a picture of my bike at the park on the side of the road there:

A few minutes later it turned off-road:

The next half hour consisted of tight turned as is often seen in rugged mountains like these, limiting speed to 10-15mph. I was totally alone, in secluded woods, enjoying life!

The road led up to a nicely maintained gravel surface that allowed travel at 30+ mph. Coming around a corner there was a woman with a stainless semiauto pistol strapped to her right side. She waved me down, making me wonder about my fate. It turned out she had moved from Key West to this area just 6 months ago and seemed to just want someone to chat with.

On my way, several more miles later the road turned into the Nantahala Scenic Byway and became paved. Amazing scenery was abound.

Later the trail turned gravel again. A few miles farther I found a great designated camp site by a rushing creek.

First I laid my gear out to dry, washed what was dirty,  then made dinner, adjusting drying items to keep them in the sun as long as I could.

Having gotten up at 3:30am I was shot so I crashed to bed early.

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Day 7, 8/24: On the trail, STILL noobing it up
Odometer start: 8787
Odometer finish: 9013
Miles: 226
TAT Mile Marker: 199

I woke early since I fell asleep so early. Instant oatmeal for breakfast while I took a nice walk, then relaxed for a bit before packing up and leave at 9:30.

The ride through the national park was fantastic. Imagine a dozen varieties each of rock size, turn radius, tree styles, and more. Hundreds of permutation of that is what I saw on this ride. The TAT passes through Tellico Plains where I gassed up, checked messages and then kept riding.

It turned into a semi-technical section with rocks the size of fists to melons on the trail surface. The bike was jarred with each foot of movement, limiting speed to 10-15 mph.

A few miles down this section came the first stream crossing. Any stream crossing is extra cool fun; it’s not something we get to do often.

So, stream crossings are fun but the rocks can be very slippery and it can be deeper than it first appears. It’s easy to mess up and end up with your bike dumped over in the creek which, while probably not a big deal of you have a few people with you, solo it can be a real nightmare. Dump it in a very slippery section and it can be hard to get good enough footing to lift it again. Dump it deep and water may flow into the air filter and flood the engine, crank it and you might ruin the engine. Leave it sit in the water not running and water may fill the exhaust pipe via a low joint and make it hard to start.

So, half of the excitement is that there’s a crossing at all. In more remote areas much of the excitement is the nervousness of making it across without biting it and having no one around for hours or days to help, you’re on your own.

The trail offered a few more river crossings, number 2 being rough due to long, parallel to the direction of travel rocks that tried to wash the front tire out while I crossed. I started pointing to. The right of the other side and ended on the far left. The others were longer but less tricky and lots of fun. One was quite deep and soaked the bottom of the panniers (as well as my legs, filled my boots with water and soaked my lap). Note to self: I hadn’t thought about keeping my gear dry when the bags are submerged. Sigh.

Merging with pavement again I tore down the road to the next gravel section. Feeling tight, I hopped off to stretch for a moment when I noticed my tent had fallen off the bike and my dry bag was hanging off the side of the bike, bumping the chain and wheel! My extra shirt had been on top drying, it was now shredded. When, oh when, will I stop being a noob?

Back down the trail I went, almost all the way to Tellico Plains where I found the tent on the side of the trail.

I spent a few minutes figuring out how to pack the load better and rode back AGAIN to continue the journey.

A large clearing showed up so I took a long lunch break. I laid the gear out in the sun to dry, set up a chair, stretched out and read a book for an hour. In this process I noticed I left my front fender bag open and lost my rope and flashlight (ouch, that cost $80). Double noob!

The break was just what I needed to settle the discouraging feeling of being totally incompetent and noob. I read once that strong, sudden reactions take 20-40 minutes to subside due to chemical reactions in the brain that have to renormalize. I focused on enjoying my book and let that take place. After lunch I was ready to roll!

The rest of the day’s ride was thoroughly enjoyable. The weather was perfect, the scenery amazing. Scenic, secluded woods, agriculture, even a train yard.

As 6pm approached I was fried, with about 8 hours in the saddle. I pulled over to find a campground on my GPS. A moment later a truck pulled up next to me and I thought “great, another dude wants to ask where I’m going and talk off-road riding”. It turned out that Johnny owned the sister bike to mine, the XR650R and has dreamed of riding the TAT himself. He offered a spot in the woods behind his house, I gladly accepted and followed him home.

Johnny was a great host. He and his wife invited me to dinner (which I declined as it was going to be a 3 hour affair after running errands and I was TIRED). Though a good meal sounded great.

I set up camp, messaged my wife via satellite (no phone service) and crashed to sleep about 9pm.

Another day of total noob-ness but a lot of awesome riding.

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Day 8, 8/25: Finally killing it
Odometer start: 9013
Odometer finish: 9270
Miles: 267
TAT Mile Marker: ~415

I awoke at 4:30am, made breakfast, packed up camp, left a note for Johnny and his wife, and hit the road at 5:30am. Riding slowly in the dark I made my way back to the trail, which was paved for the next couple of hours. The scenery was awesome. Fog blanketed much of the region so I rode in and out of it and enjoyed seeing fields and mountains with fog interspersed.

The only problem is that I was FREEZING. I held out as long as I could but passed an irresistible convenience store with a big sign reading “hot biscuits”. In I went, grabbed a biscuit and a hot chocolate and relaxed for an hour while it warmed up.

Ok, thawed out and ready for the day, I got to riding, enjoying hour upon hour of awesome scenery. There was hardly a mile that wasn’t to be enjoyed.

I passed what looked like some kind of safari jeep on the side of the road. It looked pretty high dollar for a local Tennessee boy so I wondered what they were up to. A bit down the road I passed this cool old building and copped a squat on the porch for a few.

The safari jeep passed me and it definitely looked out of place here. There was an insignia on the door, I wondered if they were some kind of ghost hunters.

I rode hard for the next hour, passed the post apocalypse jeep again (why are they still on the route I’m on?) and stopped before an easy water crossing.

Within seconds three quads came flying up to me, peppering me with questions. They were high school seniors skipping career day to ride. They each had hundreds of acres of property and would grow to take over the family farms.

We had a great time joking and talking. They asked what people in the city did in their free time, it looked like there was nothing fun to do. I agreed, hence why I live in the country 🙂 They warned me that the whole region has a strong meth presence so be careful where I camp. The area we were at presently looked like a great place to pitch. They said no way, no one will go here after dark for fear of problems with the meth community due to a method lab 4 miles down the road. I showed them my trail maps and they said yep, lots of meth in the area I’ll be in so be careful.

Just as I was getting geared back up to leave, the apocalypse jeep pulled up. One kid yelled “damn man,  it’s a zombie hunter jeep!”. It turns out these guys are driving the TAT over 4 weeks so I’ll be seeing them again and again.

I learned that these guys are from Wichita Falls, Texas. The one guy I talked to sounded German.

I bolted down the road for a couple of hours, enjoyed more stream crossings, and landed in a small town with a gas station/restaurant.

I rested up while I ate, still not having phone coverage, and decided to bolt to the nearest city for a hotel room so I could wish my wife a happy 40th birthday and do gear maintenance.

I bolted down an awesome scenic byway to Savannah TN where I got a nice room and cleaned up. Laundry, patch the mattress (5 holes!) sealed tent seams (as much as I could in the time I had) and more.

I did get to call Denise to talk for a while, then I started to drift off and had to get to bed.

Hooray for my first day of riding with no noob events! Pure fun!

Thats all for now, I’ll be back soon!