DAY 3
05/02/96
Hiawassee, GA via Deal's Gap

I suddenly awoke at 5:44 am. I managed the "where am I, what am I doing here?" quickly and hopped out of the tent to be greeted by a cocophany of birds and a pudgy white dog. The dog peed on Mike Schen's rear tire then quickly trotted off so I put my stove together and started up a big pot of coffee. Amazing stuff coffee, the mere scent alone is enough to wake people up. Pretty soon Pat Roddy rolled out of his tent, and I suddenly noticed that a few tents had mysteriously appeared during the night. Well before I knew it Mike Schen had produced some non-fat, non-dairy coffee creamery and we all were once again laughing and carrying on, only this time it was over coffee and we all needed showers. Thanks once again to Pat's excellent recon we had a brand spanking new "out of the way" bathroom with brand new showers and such, surrounded by the big RV's that pack there own showers and such. The words "not used", "no wait", and "extra clean" come to mind...

After another excellent breakfast at "the restaurant" Mike Schen and I decided to head on over to Deal's Gap by way of Route 2. On our way out we passed some bikes on their way in, wait a minute...It was the other DC area pack led by Dave and Carol Keuch, but where was Larry Fears? I did a quick 180 and raced back to camp to get the bad news that Larry had crashed on the BRP near Bedford and had broken his wrist. Dave and Carol were pretty tired so Mike and I once again set out for that holy of motorcycle destinations, Deal's Gap. Now I am firmly convinced that it is impossible to throw a rock any direction down here and not hit a great road. Mike had chosen Route 2 for some odd reason I never quite got out of him but it is probably a good thing because this road was amazing. It cut and sliced over and through the mountains, around a mountain lake, and finally ran alonside a deep gulch with a racing stream/river and frequent waterfalls including a 200+ foot whopper. We finally hit bottom at the Hydro Plant and turned to make our way up through the forest to the base of Deal's Gap. Now to get to Deal's Gap you ride a road very much like Deal's Gap (I actually thought it Was Deal's Gap as I did not know that the Crossroads Of Time is at one of the two "Bottoms" of Deal's Gap and not the "top"...) Well I am glad the road was there because I wouldn't want to start Deal's Gap cold (Someone at the rally crashed a beautiful R-90S on the approach road and never quite got to the Gap - I talked to him at Red's tent while Red tried to make the bike roadworthy.)

The Gap starts innocently enough with a small sign that says, "Winding Road Next 11 Mile", then a sign next to it that warns of a $500.00 fine for littering. I no sooner was thinking that this would be a neat way to raise money by ticketing those who crash for all of the little amber turn signal pieces when I came upon a filthy teen-ager standing in the middle of the road next to what looked like a jacket in the deep ditch on the side of the road. As it turns out, the kid was filthy because he refused to let go of the brand new Honda CBR-600 that he had just driven into the ditch. Lucky for him he was not hurt, he was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and hightops - no gloves or course. The "jacket" of course was the top of the motorcycle visible from the road. The headlight was still on, though it was hard to tell because both handlebars had broken off and were dangling, and the fairing was split completely in half, directly down the middle of the front of the bike. The gas tank was also caved in on one side and it looked like the forks were shot. I asked him if he was OK and he said yes, then asked me to get his two friends to help him with the bike as the swingarm was broken on one side an terribly bent on the other and the bike therefore could only be dragged. I said I would, then, thinking Pulitzer, I asked him if he would mind if I took his picture next to the bike. He thought about it for about a second before taking two big steps toward me and shouted, "F*** YOU." I popped the clutch and headed off leaving the poor (amazingly lucky) guy to his broken bike. (On the way back up he had walked down the road a bit so I stopped and took a picture...notice the (bent) rear swingarm!!)

Now Mike Schen is an amazing rider and he was already helmet-off and relaxing by the time I got to the Dam overlook. He pointed out that I had a butterfly stuck on one side of my visor and several bees in the other side. When I pulled out the butterfly it promptly flew away without even as much as a thank you for the ride. The bees were all dead and if they had not been I probably would have killed them anyway. Well the view was so amazing that we took a few photos and headed back towards the bottom. Actually Mike wanted to stay a while and told me to go ahead. Yeah right. Two turns later a silver flash that must have been Mike flew by me, but I didn't know it was mike till we got to the bottom 5 curves later and he greeted me again helmet off and relaxed like he'd been there for 10 minutes. I thought about speeding up but I then noticed a deep scar in the pavement that seemed to go about 30 feet and ended in a big black spot where something had obviously caught fire and melted the pavement a little. No kidding, it wasn't hard to figure out what had happened.

I made my way down to the resevior parking lot to find the Pittsburgh crew of Jeff Dunkle, Gary Smith, Jim Bessette et al as well as Rick Landi, Gary Harris, Mike Schen, and a minute later Dave and Carol Keuch, who had claimed they were too tired after the ride down from Bedford, Va, came rolling in. Well we all got to talking and, surprise...laughing. I noticed what looked like fairing parts far below in the water's edge but Rick correctly pointed out that it was a car that had apparently been litterally cut to pieces, obviously to extract someone who wasn't enjoying the view as much as we were. Well after a few Harleys did slow 180s in the middle of the road next to a blind corner we decided to head back over the Gap to the Crossroads of Time. Not wanting to be passed by everyone I let everyone go first except Dave and Carol Keuch, who were tired and two-up on an R100RT. Well four curves later Dave whipped that beast right by me so I decided to kick back and take it easy. Probably a good thing too, three turns later I almost ran into a Police Jeep Cherokee who was nice enough to share my lane then look really pissed when we almost had an up close and personal introduction.

At the Crossroads everyone was relaxing, buying shirts (they could charge a LOT more than the $10.99 for the 100% cotton Deal's Gap T-Shirt) and pins, gatoraid and snacks. We all piled in front of the sign for the picture, and we were once again off, back to Hiawassee via the incredible route 2 that everyone had missed on the way. Mike Schen led the string of bikes and in the process earned the moniker Mike "Double-Yellow" Schen for his seeming desire only to pass when there is a double yellow (at least that is the way it looked to me 6 bikes back ;-) He may tell you it is sour grapes on my part because I, being the last rider, inevitably was left far behind by the time it was clear for me to pass, however we know better. Don't we? Well?

We stopped for gas about halfway home and a very odd thing happened. As I was filling up I heard Dave yell, "Hey, stop that!" I looked over to see a dog with his nose in Dave's fairing deftly leaving something on top of his cylinder. Dave picked it up what looked like a flat rock about the size of a pack of smokes and threw it onto the nearby hillside, then went back to pumping gas and talking to his wife Carol. Well that dog ran and got the rock, ran back and once again carefully placed it on top of Dave's cylinder. We threw the rock further and further and each of the five times the dog ran and picked it up in his mouth, and brought it back gingerly placing it in the exact same spot, on top of the cylinder. Now we all thought this was quite funny but Dave was getting a little angry at the dog so we finally blocked the dog off from Dave's bike. He tried to get through for two or three minutes before finally giving up, dropping the rock, and laying down next to another dog, scowling at us the whole time. [Ed Note - during the Spring of 2003 I was telling the story of this dog and someone in the group piped up that the dog is still there, and still trying to drop rocks inside of motorcycle fairings :)]

We made it back to Hiawassee in record time (good thing I bought the V rated tire, it is amazing the kind of velocity one can achieve riding down a mountain with a tailwind...) After we all examined the mysterious force that was eating away at the bottom of Rick Landi's Fairing, foot pegs and center stand we decided to head back into town to "the restaurant." On the way into Hiawasse I found out that not only does Mike Schen's K75 occasionally erupt with a terrific backfire, at night this seems to be accompanied by a fireball as big as a softball. Now I know what Batman would ride if he were cool enough to have a bike. Unfortunately word of "the restaurant" had spread and there was simple no room for us. Luckily we had our face screens open and chanced upon the most delicious Bar-B-Q smell wafting across the road. We had found another gem, a place where one could walk into the screened porch from the order counter with a half a pound of shredded beef Bar-B-Q, a pint of Brunswick Stew, a double scoop of mustard cole slaw, two scratch-biscuits and all the iced tea one could drink for under $5.00! You'd think they had never heard of tourists before! We all laughed and carried on, filled Terry and Edwina in on the Gap run, and generally had a great time till the owners started locking and unlocking the front door and setting up lounge chairs out front. We all got the hint and headed back to camp (I made a side trip to the Food King to get chili, hot dogs, mustard and buns for a surprise midnight snack.)

The rest of the night is a little hazy as I had a bit too much of that "house brand" Bar-B-Q but I do seem to remember smoking cigars with Richard Bernecker, drinking with everyone down at Scott Adams' tent, and finally ending up late night talking with Pat Roddy and Rick Landi about all sorts of things.

On to Day 4...

Day  1   -  2  -  3  -  4  -  5 - Intro

All Photos and Text Copyright©1996-9, Ted Verrill
(Except noted photos, Copyright©1996 Dave & Carol Keuch)
Any use without explicit written permission is expressly forbidden