Brian A. Hopkins
Born to be Wild...

"Crouching Tiger, Twisty Dragon"
4 - 13 October 2007

Day Four: Sunday, October 7th
Asheville
312 Miles

The sun topped the summit of mountains to the east, revealing a wispy blanket of fog clutching the surrounding hills in a chill, damp embrace. From my bed in the loft of the cabin, I had an unobstructed view through the tall glass windows fore and aft. Cows hovered like errant shadows in the pasture to the north. To the south, the eerie glow of a porch light from the Lutz's other cabin permeated the fog like the blood from a shaving cut creeping ever so slowly through tissue paper. I'd opened the windows in the loft so that I could breathe the fresh country air all night, but now it was a bit chilly. I burrowed under the covers, reluctant to get up. I knew it wouldn't be long before the Alien was sounding reveille, though.

A foggy morning. They're not called the Great Smoky Mountains for nuthin'...

Front porch of the cabin. Fog lifting in the background.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs, sausage, and raisin toast. Greg had a friend coming from Raleigh to ride with him today, so Elaine was going to join me on the Tiger. With my minimal experience toting passengers, it could make for an interesting day. The fog burned off quickly and we were left with a perfect sunshiny day, the sorta day the Partridge family might have sung about back in the seventies -- you know, one of those tunes that makes you just want to go out and kill someone?

After a morning of twisty roads, including part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, we wound up in Pigeon Forge at a Texas Roadhouse for lunch. After lunch, Greg had to get his friend back, so Elaine and I took off in search of the infamous Tail of the Dragon -- Highway 129 -- at Deals Gap. Two up, we danced the Dragon for the highly touted "318 curves in 11 miles." It was great fun. Up, down. Left, right. Elaine giggling in  my ear. I don't think the bike was vertical for more than a fraction of a second at any one time on that stretch of road. Elaine's had years of experience being a passenger, so I hardly knew she was on the back of the bike. She knew not to make any sudden moves when we were leaned over. Any shifting of her weight could have been disastrous, because I was riding the Tiger to the edge of the tires. Riding that road any other way just wouldn't be respectful of the motorcycling gods who'd influenced the engineers who had designed and built it.

Even riding two-up, even on the Tiger which doesn't compete on any level with my ZZR or CBR, I was passing Harley dudes. Of course, finding room to pass there isn't easy if you're not on a high-powered sportbike. There was one particularly annoying couple on cruisers that took me a while to get around. At every apex, as I was trying to get on the throttle and stand the Tiger back up to hustle it out of the curve, they'd be stalled in the corner, not getting on the gas when they should. It made for some awkward riding. You can't ride a road like 129 without finding a rhythm, and if you have no rhythm or no idea what I'm talking about, well, go ride a nice straight interstate or something. It boggles my mind why more people don't take the time to learn how to actually ride their motorcycle. I mean, you could at the very least read a book like Keith Code's A Twist of the Wrist or something, then go practice and learn the basics of cornering. I fail to see how a road like the Dragon is even fun if you don't know how to ride. Wobbling through every corner, afraid you're gonna run off the road and slam into a tree or pitch yourself over a cliff ... I don't get it.

Pierre and the Tiger take in the view from Thunderstruck Ridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

There's been a lot of hoopla over at the Tail of the Dragon website concerning the law enforcement crackdown there. In that 11 miles, we saw four Tennessee troopers set up in three different locations. Good grief. How the hell they even manage to collect any revenue is beyond me, because every vehicle we passed going in the opposite direction was going apeshit making sure we were warned. Why don't you guys go solve some real crimes or something?

We stopped for the obligatory Deals Gap photo op at the sign and to pay our respects to the Tree of Shame (thankful that I had nothing to contribute). Got something to drink at the store and bought some t-shirts (for me and Greg) and stickers (for the Tiger to show that it had been there). By this time, it was getting late. There was a waterfall on the Cherohala Skyway that I'd wanted to visit, but we were running out of daylight. After tracing just a bit of the Cherohala, Elaine and I pointed the Tiger back toward Asheville and our comfy cabin. We called Gregger en route and arranged to meet him at Applebee's for dinner. Later, Greg and I watched some weird show about a giant crater in Siberia. After postulating everything from comets to a crashed alien spaceship to volcanic activity, the show finally admitted that they had no clue how the crater had been formed. The Alien just snickered, because he knew good and well what had happened there.

"Picture this," I told Elaine. "Something comes blazing from the sky and plows into a farmer's field, exploding in a great ball of fire. The farmer and his wife go running out, following the thousand yard trench in the field until they come at last to its terminal end, where the trees are ablaze and a great hole in the earth simmers with heat. There in the center of the crater, what do they see but a little bald alien baby. The farmer's wife looks over at her husband ... 'Can we keep it, Ed?'" I pointed to Gregger. "The rest is history."

Deals Gap and the Tail of the Dragon. 318 curves in 11 miles, every one of them sure to put a smile on your face.

The infamous Tree of Shame at Deals Gap.

Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort. We didn't stay there, but it looked decent. We're definitely discussing going back with our CBR1000RR's so we can dance with that lady the way she was meant to be danced.

I think this might have been the day an old guy approached me at a gas station and made an odd confession.

People are always coming up to me at gas stations to ask where I'm going, or ask if I'm cold, or with the Tiger: "Hey, what kinda bike is that?" I'm not the first to discuss this; it's a very common theme amongst those of us who ride a lot. I had one guy come up to me early on in this trip and ask, "What is that thing? Looks kinda like an overgrown dirtbike..." I told him the Tiger was a bike with an identity crisis and, to be honest, it really didn't quite know what kind of bike it wanted to be when it grew up. "For the time being," I told him, "it does everything well and pretty much goes wherever the hell it wants." He seemed happy with that answer. Later, on the way home (I'm writing about all these oddball encounters here, instead of where they occur chronologically, because this is where it has occurred to me to do so), some guy asked Greg and me which way we were heading. "West," Greg told him. "Oh," replied the guy rather wistfully from behind the wheel of his pickup truck, "I'm heading east. If I was going west, I'd go home and get my Harley and go with you." We didn't quite know what to say to that. Did he think we just rode around looking for guys to join our gang or something?

But the guy I was going to write about here ... an old gray whiskered fella in a rundown pickup truck ... he rolls up next to me at the gas station and asks the usual questions about the Tiger. Then he goes into the "I used to have a bike" routine that I've heard a million and one times now. He finishes that bit with "But after I laid one down, I quit riding."

"I've been down a time or three over the years," I told the old guy, sparing him the grisly details of broken bones, mangled machinery, and splattered deer entrails in the interest of moving on down the road, "but it's never kept me from getting back on a bike." He pondered that for a second or two, then said, "Yeah, but I'm a coward." What to say to that one? Fortunately, Greg and Elaine were mounting up, so I told him I had to get moving or my friends would leave me. He watched us ride off, rheumy eyes trying to remember more than the asphalt dance that had ended whatever infatuation he'd once had with motorcycles.

Me, I'll keep riding until I'm PHYSICALLY incapable of getting on a bike. I don't think that makes me brave. I just know motorcycling is something I love. You manage the risks, but you do accept them for what they are. Embrace them even, because -- who's to say? -- without those risks, motorcycling wouldn't quite be the same. If it wasn't dangerous, maybe I'd be just as happy collecting stamps? Or -- gods forbid -- playing golf!

(Click on Tigger to continue the adventure...)