With the day off and a great weather forecast I decided to do something that I've been wanting to do for awhile now.
I took my old Nighthawk for a ride through The Snake.
This is about a 400 mi round trip for me, which is an easy day on the Valk but makes for a full day on a 750 Nighthawk.
The route included a short loop through the NC mountains as well.......................
BTW: US 58 between Independence, VA and Damascus, VA is also a lot of fun.
Route 133 from Damascus, VA to Shady Valley, TN is a nice route that has the worlds shortest tunnel.
Which does make for a nice photo-op:
When I arrived at the store I found it to be pretty desolate:
I spent about 30 minutes hanging out and had the only motorcycle there:
From there I rode my favorite section of The Snake (Shady Valley to Mountain City).
I shot some video but will have to post it later (having problems getting it to load).
Riding the Nighthawk through the Snake was every bit as much fun as I thought that it would be.
And even though I wasn't "Dogging" the bike (she is 29 yrs old) when I stopped, it was obvious that I had been using almost all of the rear tire:
The sky became pretty threatening but I managed to stay mostly dry.
I did get caught by a light shower for a few miles outside of Jefferson, NC.
I almost made it home before darkness set in, It got dark on me with about 30 miles to go.
The main problem with this was that my face shield became so covered with bugs that I couldn't see the road, especially with oncoming cars.
All in all it was a very enjoyable day spent riding some twisty roads through, "God's Country" in the mountains of VA, TN and NC.
And, It's a good thing that I'm off today too, because my back is still recovering from 400 miles on the Nighthawk.
