Columbia, TN

First and foremost I forgot to mention I almost killed myself fixing my bike. I was messing with the footboard and the kick stand is attached to that so COULD have been under the bike- but I double checked before I did anything more.

Once we hit the Tennessee line we all agreed that the bugs were terrible. We got so many bugs in our faces. Clearly noticeably more.

I was very nervous about this ride because they said it will be the most challenging one.

We came out of Cherokee NC. Right off the bat we tried taking a wrong turn, but this time Connor was right and led us the right way.

Shortly after we climbed a mountain. Mike ended up making the mountain just fine. That new sprocket really helped. Him and Scott took off from Jerry and I. They chugging along but eventually came up on some people that were going slower so they passed them and we weren’t able to. We took our time and enjoyed the views. The views were out of this world beautiful.

There were rumors that we would be going on the tail of the dragon. And by golly we did! I’ve ridden it before but that was awhile ago- and on a modern bike. The road was pretty empty- which was absolutely a god sent. Once we were done with the Tail of the Dragon we had pretty views of the country side- not a ton of huge climbs.

We were welcome in Columbia. TN at Colombia Motor Alley. Mike Wolf being the owner. A good group of people showed up, and had a delicious meal. We then, as a team, walked a block to an ice cream shop. We loved it! Then we went back and worked on bikes. All we did was maintenance which is awesome!

Larry took the day off from riding. In the truck he looked at the creek and the road then looked at the temperature in the truck and said “this would be a nice place to ride”. Apparently this happened a few times. Joe offered to pull over and take his bike out. It didn’t happen.

Want to know what it’s like to ride one of these bikes? You are sore every day and it gets uncomfortable. I see every rider moving around. Every-time I get off my bike my butt hurts- and I have a cushion. My hips hurt- my lower back hurts , my shoulders and neck are just full of tightness if that’s a thing.

What do I do and think about while driving. Hmmm… I sing a lot in my head. Mostly country road take me home. I’ll think of stuff to put in the blog and completely forget it by the time I write it, I also look around obviously which then triggers what I think about. The best part is seeing people so shocked about what we are riding. They will wave, give a thumbs up - whatever it is, it’s an awesome feeling. We pulled into a a gas station the other day and someone honked and I asked Scott why they honked and this random dude was like “because you’re freaking awesome”.

At the icecream shop I was sitting and Joe was leaning against the refrigerator that I was next to and talking to someone. It was a man and a wife and a teenager or early adulthood man who had some kind of disability. Joe was trying to ask him how he was. He (the man) pointed to me and said “she’s pretty” 😍 it was the most adorable thing ever. Melt my heart.

There was this little boy walking around the parking lot with his grandpa or dad and he was just looking at the bikes, he was shy. I asked him if he wanted to sit on one of them- he was all for it and smiled big even for being shy.