Chattahoochee BDR-X Lite (missed it by “that much”)

 

When my buddy Dennis said he was coming out east to ride a few BDR’s and invited me to ride the Chattahoochee BDR-X with him, I agreed…though not without a little trepidation.  You see, I’ve finished the last two BDR’s I’ve done solo—the Arizona and New Mexico—as my partners left in the backs of trucks or air ambulance’s.  I don’t have a great record of riding BDRs with friends. And it was with that worry on my mind that I agreed to go along. 

We left Chattanooga for Ellijay, Georgia, which is the start of the Chattahoochee BDR-X, early on a Wednesday morning.  The weather called for triple digit heat, brutal humidity and heavy thundershowers.  So we wore mesh riding gear and waterproof boots and left with high hopes.

We took backroads through some pretty Georgia countryside on our way to Ellijay and arrived in about two hours.  We wasted no time in starting the BDR-X.  The first few miles were just paved back roads and I became skeptical that this was not gonna be much of an off-road adventure.  Well, that quickly changed when we turned off onto a gravel road and headed up into the hills.   

It wasn’t too much longer until we were faced with some fairly challenging, rutted out roads.  Because I was leading, and had picked a poor line going through these ruts, my buddy did not have the momentum to follow me and his bike tipped over.  It wasn’t but a few minutes afterwards that I realized I had dropped a gear bag on the trail and had to ride back down and retrieve it.  I found it about a 1/2 mile down the trail and we headed back up to face the deep ruts again.  This time we passed through almost effortlessly.  

It wasn’t but a couple more miles up the trail where I came up on a mud puddle.  At first glance, it aseemed fairly unassuming, but I had remembered watching a video of a motorcyclist going through a similar mud puddle that looked about 3 or 4 feet deep.  I hit it a in second gear, standing on my pegs and sure enough it came up to my thighs.  The muddy water was almost over my tank before I was able to come out the other side.   

Dennis was doing pretty good until midway through the mud hole when his bike just stopped.  I resigned myself to getting into the mud hole and pushing the bike out but didn’t have to.  Instead, he used a trick that I’d never seen to get out of the puddle: He put the bike in first gear and used the starter to pull it out.  And sure enough it worked.

While I was walking back to my bike, I heard it abruptly stop, as if it ran out of fuel.  Long story short, we stripped down the bike checking for electrical, air or fuel issues.  It smelled flooded and the plug was fouled.  We cleaned the spark plug, buttoned everything up and the bike started like normal.  Though it occasionally sputtered, it did fine the rest of the day.

We rolled into the tiny town of Suches at the end of Section one, but could not find lodging.  The local bike haven called, “Two Wheels of Suches” was not open and besides, they had a two night minimum.  We rode back the way we came through some fun twisties to the little town of Dahlonega where we found lodging and some decent Georgia barbecue.

The next morning we started off for Suches to begin Section 2.  Even though it was all  pavement, I must admit that those twisties were awful fun early in the morning.

Sadly, my bike was not cooperating, and it appeared to be a continuing fuel issue. Again, I stripped it down at the local gas station and determined that I had either got some water in the fuel, some bad gas or something keeping the float valve open.  After putting everything back together and having the bike start up OK, we decided to take a different route back to Chattanooga.  And that pretty much ended our Chattahoochee BDR–X experience. 

However, looking at my GPS as we rode Route 60 west, I could see that we were still on the Chattahoochee BDR-X route.  Though the tracks went north and south off of Route 60, we were pretty much following the overall route.

Due to my bike’s intermittent issues and weather concerns, we decided to skip Section 3 and head home the long way via back roads.  And there are some truly spectacular backroads in that part of Georgia and Tennessee. We headed north toward the North Carolina border and rode through the small towns of Ducktown, Blue Ridge and McCaysville before reaching Tellico Plains.  

It was getting hotter and muggier and we headed back south following as many 2-lane roads as possible.  We saw we’d just missed a huge rain front that was moving east toward Ellijay. Just as we arrived back in Chattanooga, the skies opened up and a thunderstorm brought down the heavy rain that had been treating us the past couple of days.  

Though we didn’t complete the BDR, we both agreed we had a most excellent ride.  

Will I go back and finish the last two sections? Most likely. 

TO BE CONTINUED. 

Big Tennessee to California Loop III (May 2025)

I had to see my uncle in Baja in late May.  I could’ve just flown out to San Diego and taken care of it that way, but I figured I had three weeks to play with…I may as well make it a road trip. So once again, I hopped on my big old pig of a bike, my BMW R1200 GSA, and pointed it west.

I had loose plans to see several friends and family members along the way.  So I put a route together that would touch on Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, and a couple cities in Arizona.  Because I had a limited time schedule, I couldn’t fit Lake Havasu and a couple other places into the route.

I left on the 9th of May with Little Rock, Arkansas as the day’s destination.  It was 500 miles so in retrospect, I should’ve just ridden all the way to Oklahoma City. The second day was a quick 350-mile hop to my brother’s place in OKC where I spent a couple days enjoying the town. 

From there, I rode another 500 miles over to Albuquerque and spent the evening with family members. The next day I pushed on to my friend Jon’s place near Prescott, Arizona... an easy but windy 400-mile ride.  The next day I rode just a couple hours south to my friend Rudy’s house near Phoenix. The last two stops consisted of considerable amounts of alcohol.  As a matter of fact, Rudy sent me off to San Diego with the breakfast of toast and three shots of tequila. 

I spent four days in the San Diego area visiting with family and friends —and doing a little bit of business down in Ensenada.  

For my return trip, I had planned to ride directly east along interstates 8 and 10 until I reached Van Horn, Texas, where I was going to ride northeast through Wichita Falls to interstate 40.  However, while discussing my route plans, my buddy Doug in Phoenix asked if I wanted some company and said he would ride with me as far as Albuquerque. He took a couple days off of work and I planned a route through Indian country.  

Fortuitously, the Apache Trail had just been reopened after wildfires and mudslides had closed it four years ago.  The Apache Trail is a cool little road —22 miles of which is unpaved —that stretches from Apache Junction, east of Phoenix, over to Roosevelt Dam near Globe, Arizona.  

We left Doug’s house on May 22nd and headed into Indian country, comprised of several Native American reservations.  We stopped for a cold one and a bite to eat at Tortilla Flat—a cool little ghost town—along the way. We passed through several small towns, like Concho and Show Low, along the way.  That night we stayed at a little place on the Zuni reservation just across the border in New Mexico.  That was an easy and very enjoyable 400 miles.  

The next day we headed north to the little town of Mexican Water on the Utah border. If you haven’t seen that part of the country, it’s extremely scenic… just spectacular mesas and rock formations that appear to have been built and painted by the gods.  It was a long hot day and it took us about nine hours to reach our hotel just north of Albuquerque.  We put on a lot of miles through some beautiful country and were beat.

The next morning Doug and I parted ways… me going east and he heading back west.  

I reached my brother’s place in OKC by early afternoon.  Though I wanted to celebrate a bit, I had an early morning the next day.

On the morning of the 25th, I saddled up and headed home.  I was receiving tornado warnings and thunderstorm watches throughout the day. However, the weather could not have been better with blue skies and white clouds.  The freeways were wide open due to the Memorial Day holiday so I never even touched the brakes.  

I reached home 30 minutes before dark after riding 830 miles in almost exactly 12 hours.

It was a perfect ending to a really, really nice ride.

And the memories of spending time with my friends and family along the way…priceless. 

Riding to Everglades City with Friends

I left Tampa almost a year ago and, embarrassingly, I must admit that I haven’t ridden much since. So when a friend still in Tampa suggested we all get together and ride down to Everglade city for a few days I was in.

I packed up my BMW and rode the 600 miles down to Tampa on the I-75.  The weather was fine…though the traffic wasn’t.  But everything was fine once I got together with everyone and was able to catch up. It was so nice to be back among my friends Paul, Ralph and the other Paul.

We left on a Sunday at about noon.  While we had planned to ride our bikes down—two big Harleys, my BMW, and a sweet Moto Guzzi—the Guzzi was being finicky—like Italian models are prone to be—and its rider, Paul, decided to just drive his Mercedes down instead.  A small glitch, but nobody minded.

We left the south Tampa area and broke away from the traffic fairly quickly.  Paul had planned a nice route through some classic Florida back roads as none of us wanted to be on the main highways.  

We passed through some cool little towns on the fairly quick and easy 160-mile ride. There was Arcadia, Tucker’s Corner, Sunniland, Verandah and Copeland. Did I mention that the weather was perfect? April is a great time to ride in South Florida as it’ll be smoking hot and humid come summer.

Once we arrived and checked into our hotel, we all grabbed drinks and headed for the pool.  After soaking in the cool water, the sun dried us out in no time.  We walked over to a local diner and the Cuban owners took good care of us. 

The next day consisted of an air boat ride through the area’s mangrove swamps, and what an experience that was. We found a couple spots for drinks and lunch.  

A word about Everglades City: It was mainly developed in the mid to late 1800’s as a trapping and lumber center.  Though the rail lines that transported the cypress north are long gone, the remnants remain.  Now catering mostly to fishermen, the town appears to be stuck in the 1920’s.  There doesn’t appear to have been any infrastructure upgrades in decades.  Homes on stilts are owned by families who’ve lived there for over 100 years.  It’s quaint but there’s not a lot to do except fish and rode the airboats.  Nuff said.

On our final day, we loaded up the bikes, gassed up and stopped for breakfast at a small diner.  Tasty food, generous portions and reasonable prices made it that much better.  

Seeing a big gator smiling lazily in a canal as we rode out of town was just a perfect goodbye.  

Paul led us back via a similar route and we arrived in 3 hours, the weather and traffic cooperating to make the ride fun and easy.

After a brief rest, I pointed the big Beemer toward home and fought accident and construction traffic on the I-75 northbound for over 9 hours.  It is what it is… 

I’d recommend this ride for a couple reasons: The Florida backroads between Tampa and the Everglades are nice and easy to ride; and Everglades City is an interesting place to just relax and enjoy the slower pace.  Heck, I’m already planning a return trip.