| Author | Message | ||
     Hughlysses |
Not really the Alps, but as close as you can get to them in the southeastern US... WHAT? Buell meet (sleep/eat/ride/talk) WHERE? Little Switzerland, NC (it's more-or-less equidistant from Charleston, SC (287 miles), Atlanta, GA (248 miles), and Raleigh, NC (234 miles) WHEN? July 29-31, 2011, Friday/Saturday/Sunday. Show up earlier if you want; stay later if you want. WHO? Any interested motorcyclist, but concentrating on fellow Badwebbers and especially SC Buell Riders, 3%'ers (GA), and C3'ers (NC) WHY? We're all in need of some serious twisty riding and some cooler temperatures! MORE INFO: http://www.diamondbacknc.com/ - webpage on roads and motorcycle lodging in the area. Little Switzerland sits on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the intersection with 226A and 226B, which are both awesome roads. There are plenty of good twisty roads off of the Parkway nearby. http://bear-den.com/index.html - Campground nearby on the Blue Ridge Parkway; has tent camping, "camp cabins", and full cabins. Their website allows you to check availability and make reservations on-line. There are a few hotels very nearby (from "mom & pop" motels up to fancy resorts) and several major chain hotels down the mountain in Marion (17 miles south) http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&g eocode=&q=little+switzerland,+nc&aq=&sll=35.878305 ,-80.36258&sspn=1.793691,3.820496&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnea r=Little+Switzerland,+McDowell,+North+Carolina&z=1 5 Map of area SC Buell Rider's Forum at Badweb: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/37/ 130123.html? | ||
| Whatever |
Awesomeness !!!  | ||
| Etennuly |
That sounds GREAT! I'm putting this on the ole John Deere calendar! I spent the night at Little Switzerland a few years ago. I recall a good meal included with the room. | ||
| Etennuly |
(Message edited by etennuly on June 28, 2011) | ||
| Rcontroler |
NOW YER TALKIN'  (Message edited by rcontroler on June 27, 2011) | ||
| Hughlysses |
Woohoo! Char & Vern- hope to see you there. Please pass the word to anyone you know who might be interested. | ||
| Xbslim |
I may and try to get off work on Friday or ride up Saturday morning.The 31st there will be a bike show in Chesnee http://www.antiquebikesonmain.com/ Figured Sunday people who come will be riding back home though. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Hotel info for those interested: the Skyline Village Inn (between Little Switzerland and Spruce Pine, NC) looks like a decent hotel; a couple of us are staying there: http://www.the-skyline.com/ As of last night, rooms are available for $59/night (no balcony) or $89/night (with balcony) plus tax. | ||
| Arcticktm |
Very nice place for a ride. I'm about 60 miles south in Hendersonville area. Hwy 80 and 226A are some local favorites of mine. Nice pavement and beautiful area, though can get a bit trafficky on summer weekends. If you are planning on staying in the area, I'd recommend staying closer to Little Switzerland or even Spruce Pine area rather than Marion. Marion is not very pretty and full of traffic. If I am enough recovered from my recent incident (and get the new parts for the Uly), I will need to come up for a day. | ||
| Hughlysses |
More details about next weekend: Meeting for supper Friday night July 29 at the Mountain View Restaurant at 6 PM; it's about 4.5 miles south on 226A from Little Switzerland: http://www.mountainviewrest.com/ Mountain View Restaurant 5253 NC Hwy 226 Little Switzerland, NC 28749 If you don't make it up until Saturday, we're having lunch at the Switzerland Cafe and General Store (in the middle of Little Switzerland) at around noon on Saturday July 30: http://www.switzerlandcafe.com/default.php I plan on spending most of my time riding. 226A and 226B (both great roads) head south out of Little Switzerland and you can make a loop by going down one and back up the other. A great section of the Blue Ridge Parkway goes through Little Switzerland so that's good riding too. Highway 80 (Buck Creek Gap Road) is another great road off the Parkway about 10 miles away. From Little Switzerland it's about 25 miles south to Mount Mitchell and Asheville's just a little further. Boone is about 45 miles north and there's stuff to see and do there. Spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested. Hope to see you in next weekend. | ||
| Hughlysses |
3 days to go... | ||
| Hughlysses |
2 days to go... Link to maps of good roads in the area: http://www.motorcycleroads.us/regions/nc_appalachi an.html | ||
| Hughlysses |
Here's the list of attendees based on previous posts: Hughlysses (me) Rcontroler Scbuellkat Xbslim Hellraged Tailspining Rav962 Coldwind Etennuly Greenlanternjeep (maybe) Articktm (maybe) That's 11- if I missed anybody, let me know. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Update- sounds like Hellraged won't make it, but Rubberdown (of C3) and a friend will.  | ||
| Hughlysses |
The first wave has arrived- we've got 5 Buells so far and 2 of those were unexpected. The hotel is cool- rooms are nice & they have an awesome beer selection in the office. If you were sitting on the fence about coming up, GET OFF THE FENCE!!! | ||
| Etennuly |
I am doing my best to meet you for lunch Saturday. If anything changes I will post. | ||
| Hughlysses |
We'll look for you Vern. There's a Uly rider here from Savannah that REALLY wants to talk to you about "skip spark". | ||
| Hughlysses |
5 Buells under at the hotel Friday night. They have covered M/C parking & stuff for washing.  | ||
| Hughlysses |
13 Buells at lunch today!  | ||
| Etennuly |
A great day for sure! Thanks for inviting me, not only did I enjoy meeting some new to me folks, but you got me out for my second real ride this year. Guess a little arm twisting is what I needed. I did 390 some miles and it was all great. Thanks again Hugh.  See you at Buelltoberfest! | ||
| Bigdaddy |
Nice to meet you in-person Vern. We got back on the BRP headed north and ended up playing storm chasers/racers for the next 1.5 hours. Worthwhile day trip indeed. Thanks Hugh. edit: that is, IIRC, the first pic of me on BWB in 4 or 5 years...maybe since Daytona and they heydays of XBRR (Message edited by bigdaddy on July 31, 2011) | ||
| Hughlysses |
OK, photos from the trip up, the meet, and my trip home today: Don, Henry, and me gassing up at Chapin, SC before heading up on Friday.  Taking a break north of Spartanburg.  Now for a tour of the hotel. The hotel was neat- it was clean, everything worked, the owners were friendly, and it had a great location. I'd definitely recommend it. Front view:   Rear view (3rd level):  My room. The whole hotel had very cool woodwork:  Hotel bar in the restaurant:  Staircase on third floor:  Staircase w/handrail:  View from 2nd floor balcony:  Sign out front:  Looking down 226A to the intersection with 226. Spruce Pine is about 5 miles in that direction:  The hotel was really cool and the owner's were very nice. The place was built in the 40's by a local guy who did all the woodwork. The concrete is reinforced with railroad rails instead of rebar! On top o of his construction skills the guy was apparently a bootlegger. The present owner discovered a hidden tunnel that went from the boiler room under the parking lot in back. Sounds like he's still discovering stuff. Oh yea, let's not forget the covered motorcycle parking out back:  Buells lined up at the restaurant in Little Switzerland on Saturday:    Lone blue Uly:  Hey, who are those dudes?  Lunch crowd:  I counted 13 Buells total- pretty cool!  We had several good rides, including the 236/236A loop, 236/221 down to Marion, 70W over to 80 (Buck Creek Road), up and over the Parkway, and backroads back to Little Switzerland. I'm sure we just scratched the surface on good roads in the area. I'll post some more pics from Sunday and today later. | ||
| Hughlysses |
...Make that tomorrow. Saturday night, former Buell rider Rubberdown of C3 showed up outside the hotel on his BMW GS1200:  Mike had missed us earlier in the day and I just happened to see a GS with 2 people on it ride out of the parking lot and I waved. Mike, his friend Rachel, Gilbert, Henry and I got dessert in the restaurant and talked motorcycles for an hour or so before they headed off. Sunday morning, Henry and Darren headed back down to the SC midlands leaving me and Gilbert who stayed another day. We headed up the Parkway west to go over to Maggie Valley to the "Wheels Through Time" motorcycle museum (http://wheelsthroughtime.com/). Here's a photo on our way over:  I didn't take any photos there, but here's one from the net:  They have over 250 old American motorcycles, many one of kind. All of them run, too. While we were in the museum, a big rain came up out of apparently no where, soaking our jackets and seat pads. We waited it out and then rode and got some BBQ in Maggie Valley. It started raining again as we left town, but as we gained altitude approaching the Parkway we rode out of it. That's the only rain we got in all weekend. The section of the Parkway between Maggie Valley and Asheville is the highest and has the most tunnels. Seems like we rode through 20 tunnels on Sunday. Here's the highest point:  We got back to the hotel at about 8 o'clock, just as it was getting dark:  Unfortunately, there were only a few people in the hotel Sunday night, the restaurant closed at 8 and the restaurant across the street closed at 8. Gilbert's GPS showed there was a Western Sizlin' down the mountain about 10 miles away, so we headed down 236. JUST as we got to the bottom of the mountain and turned right on 221 to head to Marion, the rain drops started and we could see a huge storm in that direction. Gilbert's GPS had a radar display that showed the storm was at least as bad as it looked, so we turned around and headed back up the mountain. We rode over to Spruce Pine, where we found several restaurants, settling on Pizza Hut because they were the only one still open! Monday, Gilbert slept in and I got an early start. I found some info on a road north-east of Spruce Pine that looked interesting, 19E. It was OK, with a decent twisty section about 10 miles up, but I got stuck behind a farm truck towing a hay trailer so it wasn't a very good ride. I took a few roads at random and wound up back at Spruce Pine. I jumped on the Parkway and headed west. Here's a photo west of Little Switzerland a few miles:  I took highway 80 down the mountain (and I do mean DOWN). I had a good run down all those switchbacks and S-curves with no traffic until I got ~10 miles down. At that point, I met an 80's T-bird IN MY LANE passing some guy in a Jeep on a curve. I hugged the inside of the turn to get as far clear of him as I could, he managed to get back in his lane just in time, the Jeep driver looked like he ran off the road, and I laid on the horn. I hope the T-bird driver had to change his shorts. After that, I took 70W to I-40 over to Black Mountain, and got on 9 south (another great road in the area). I took that down to Bat Cave (no sign of Batman anywhere) and over to the town of Chimney Rock.  You can just barely make out the "chimney" in the above photo if you know where to look. From there, I rode past Lake Lure, and down to Columbus, NC where I got back on I-26. Weirdest interstate intersection I've ever seen- they had a traffic circle on each side of the interstate that the interstate ramps connected to. Strange. I had good weather all the way home (apart from being pretty hot) and traffic wasn't too bad. I made it back to Summerville about 4:30. That was a great meet (apart from our one mishap); hopefully we'll do it again next year, if not before. To all who came, thanks for coming! | ||
| Hughlysses |
If you went on the ride up highway 80/Buck Creek Road on Saturday, you can find your photo here: http://www.photoreflect.com/store/ThumbPage.aspx?e =8147294&g=1VLV002X03 | ||
| Hellraged |
man looked like so much fun! would have had the only old school buell there  , too bad i couldnt come  am inbetween jobs and didnt have a pay check this weekend and had to work anyways but next time im going to come :P damn looks like fun, thought about ya all sat though. lol | ||
| Bigdaddy |
Nice pics Hugh. The kid, Noah, who rode up with me Saturday wadded his 9S up yesterday just south of Hickory. He is going to survive it, but what a hard lesson to learn. Good kid, but a poor decision maker about gear...he wore everything while he was with me on Saturday, but yesterday he decided he didn't need it. He got life-flighted to Charlotte late yesterday afternoon with a multitude of injuries. He's in a couple of the pics you posted up, blue shirt, blond hair, crazy white sunglasses. Stupid kids are going to drive me crazy. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Damn Greg- sorry to hear that. I guess he's ahead of the game if he survived it. If this old man can ride ~250 miles home in non-mesh M/C gear yesterday anybody can stand to wear it. Some lessons are learned the hard way. If there's anything we can do to help him, please post up. | ||
| Rubberdown |
Hey Hugh, Great to see you again! You're looking well ... must be the good riding! Very nice to meet Gilbert and Henry. Thanks for the heads up. Mike. p.s. passed a sweet translucent, deep red, XB12 on a trailer on the highway on the way home. Sweet bike! p.s. get well soon Noah! (Message edited by rubberdown on August 03, 2011) | ||
| Hughlysses |
Hey Mike- thanks for coming up. I bought some pics from "Blind Kenny" of our run up highway 80/Buck Creek Road:  He's got some pretty good deals. Digital download of this one, suitable for posting on the internet was only $1.50. |
