Deals Gap Trip (With our route in Google Maps)
This is going to be a slightly long post! I’ll try and describe the daily events as best as I can remember. I will post pictures from each day, as well as post the routes (from my GPS) that we took for that day.
Click here for the full directory of pics (Over 500).
DAY 1:
Kevin and I loaded the bike onto the trailer at noon, then started off at my parents house in London, at approximately 3pm. We were ahead of schedule! We started off down the 401, towards Windsor. The plan was to drive all afternoon/evening, and through the night, and arrive at the cabin early morning, ready to ride for the day! The trip down was pretty uneventful. We stopped at the duty free shop, 2-3 gas breaks, 1 meal break, and 1 Wal-Mart (for groceries) break.
We arrived at the Gap around 3:30am, and it was pouring rain. With a trailer, loaded with bikes, you can’t go very fast through the gap, especially in the rain! It took us about 1 hour, 45 minutes to get through the gap, through the back roads, and to our cabin. We arrived at the cabin at around 5:45am. We immediately fell asleep, and within about 2 minutes, a freakin rooster started his morning calls, and woke us up. So we had to sleep, while a rooster was 5 feet away. We slept in the car till about 7:30 or so. We both got out, and explored the area, and waited for the owner to arrive, to let us into the cabin. I won’t go into too many details about this day, as it was pretty bland. It rained all day, and we were all VERY tired. We just chilled out in the cabins, and went to bed early.
DAY 2:
We got up around 9am, got the bikes gassed up, and headed out. First thing we did was stop of at wheelers, so someone could fix their clutch cable. It’s a small motorcycle shop in the Deals Gap area. Then we headed to Deals Gap. I have never seen such an amazing road. You dorve into the resort, hungout with some fellow riders, then drove the gap, then hungout on the other side, till you wanted to come back. We did the Gap a couple times, then headed east to the Fontana Dam, then we headed to the Cherohola Parkway. This road was one of my favorite roads, it wound through the mountains, and got up for around 5,000ft. One of our riders had a slight mishap, and went down through the corner, and hit a guard rail. He was quite injured, and had to be flown out via Helicopter. He was riding a brand new Kawasaki ZX-14 (pictures below). We waited a couple hours for details on weather he was alright, then headed back to the cabin for some downtime. The rest of the night was spent eating dinner, watching some TV, and hanging out.
DAY 2:
We decided to take a nice and slow, scenic, jeans and jacket ride today. We headed out late morning, and went through the gap, then went on a road called the Foothills Parkway. This road went up into the mountains, surrounding the park. We found an awesome lookout point, where we lined the bikes up, and enjoyed the scenery. The plan was then to go to a town north of the park, but we decided to visit Geoff in the hospital instead. After the hospital visit, we drove back down towards the gap, through the gap, and back to the cabins. Not to much going on this day.
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DAY 3:
Leathers back on, we headed through the gap, where i stopped half way and took a few pictures of our group, and others. I had trouble with my camera, as I was in the shade mostly, but my subjects were in the sun, and the camera had trouble with the amount of light. So some pictures are dark, some of over-exposed. After that, a few people decided to go swimming. We found a nice spot right on the side of the road. After that, we headed up the foothills parkway again, then into a town called Pigeon Forge. We ate at a buffet restaurant, then headed out south, through the park. The road was called Highway 441, and the scenic views were amazing! Mountains everywhere! Once we got to the bottom of the park, we headed east back to our cabins. Made supper, had a campfire, and chilled out.
DAY 4: (Last day of riding)
Some of the guys wanted to head to the gap to go through it a bunch of times, but Kevin, Fab and I decided to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway. It took about 45 minutes to get there, but was definitely worth it. This was, by far, the best road of the week. We got up to 6000 ft, and the views were absolutely amazing. Living in London my whole life, I have never seen mountains like these. The road was amazing, so winding, and the pavement was awesome. The 3 of us let loose for a few kilometers, and really ripped it up. Luckily we slowed down for the hairpin corner with the boulders scattered on the road! We turned around halfway down the road, got some lunch in a nearby city, and headed back to the gap resort. We watched the bikes for a little while, then headed back to the resort. We packed up our stuff a bit, and got an early nights sleep for the ride home tomorrow.
DAY 5:
We packed the bikes up at 7am, and was out the door by 8am. The road home was fairly boring, and uneventful. We arrived in London at my parents house around 9:30pm. It was nice to get home!
CONCLUSION:
I had a blast! It was awesome to get away for a week, with some good friends. The roads were spectacular! The scenery was spectacular! Makes me want to buy another bike! I would definitely go back next year!
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