LIKEing the Blue Ridge Mountains.

[klaviator]

The weather guessers were forecasting an 80% chance of rain, just like the first day.  Well it did catch up with us as we rode into a shower, stopped and put on our rain suits and then rode right out of it. 

We took another break.



After some real twisty roads we ended up back on the BRP.  Of course we had to stop here and take some pics.



In case you are wondering, the Like ran just fine at that elevation.  I wonder how it would run at twice that elevation?



.



.



.



We ended up back in Maggie Valley with 7 riders as two headed for home during the ride.  We rode around 200 miles that day.  Being a much shorter ride than the first day allowed us to stop more and enjoy the scenery. 

[dan v.]

That is me on my Buddy 125.  I flogged it pretty hard while there, but I brought it down from Michigan in the back of my pickup.  How long would a 12 hour drive by pickup truck translate to Buddy hours? 

Thanks for posting all the pics, Klaviator!

[monkeybongos]

You guys travel light.  See hardly any luggage on board.
What gas do you use, Klav?

[klaviator]

You guys travel light.  See hardly any luggage on board.
What gas do you use, Klav?

No need to carry a bunch of luggage since we returned to the same motel every night.  I run regular gas in my Kymco. 

[klaviator]

Day 3, Wednesday.

After two fantastic days, our last day of riding was coming up. We were down to five for today's ride as a couple of riders left during yesterday's ride and two more this morning.

We started off with Dan and I swapping bikes. He rode my Like and I rode his Buddy. I had sat on a Buddy before in a showroom and thought it was just to small but I actually fit OK and it was surprisingly comfortable.



Right off the line the Buddy felt weak but I think that was more the throttle rigging than actual performance. The biggest difference was in the brakes. The Like felt like it had power brakes and the buddy felt like it barely had any. You had to give the buddies brakes a firm squeeze while the brakes on the Like require less effort than any scooter I have ridden.

We rode about 8 miles and stopped at a gas station where we had an interesting conversation. A guy came up and asked where we were going and I told him "Marshall". He replied that it was a good thing we got an early start because it would take a long time to get there on "those things". Then he proceeded to tell us how his Road King was much faster.

I would have liked to see him try to keep up with us on anything other than straight roads.

Then we took some back roads and 209 to Trust where we took another break.



After our stop in Trust it was time for some serious curves.



.



.



Riding into Marshall, NC.



Interesting old gas station and diner.



We took some twisty roads down to the French Broad River.



.

[klaviator]

We stopped and gassed up and the hit some of my very favorite roads.  Miles and miles of virtually non-stop curves with little or no traffic. We were on scooters but this felt more like a sport bike ride.  We rode until it was time for lunch where we stopped at a cafe I found on google maps. I had never eaten there before but figured since this place was off the beaten path and would depend almost entirely on locals, it wouldn't survive if it wasn't good.



A pic shortly after lunch.  That's I-26 up on that bridge.



Did I mention there were some curves?  We stopped, I handed my camera to someone and made a few passes.



.



The Like is not a sportbike but on really twisty roads it's more fun IMO.



.

[wbdvt]

Awesome pics!  Thank you for posting.
How was the lunch?

[klaviator]

Awesome pics!  Thank you for posting.
How was the lunch?

Lunch was good.  I had a chili dog and fries.  I'd go back again.  Since it's convenient to some really fantastic roads I expect I'll be back again sometime.

[klaviator]

After the last set of pics we rode a bunch of curves but didn't stop much for pictures.  this was the only one I got:



Total mileage was around 200 miles again.

[klaviator]

Day 4 Thursday.

I was up early again and took this pic from the motel.



I said goodbye to a a few others as they departed and left just two of us.  We were both heading home that day but since Alabama was not that far we had time for a short ride.

We started out by riding up one of the steepest roads I have been on.  I was struggling to maintain 25 MPH on my Like.  Eventually we got to the top of the mountain where the road leveled of and the pavement ended.  We stopped to enjoy the view and take some pics.



Then we continued on to check out the local ski area.



As we were stopped taking pics we heard the distinctive sound of a motorcycle coming up the road.



The rider stopped and talked to me with a thick European accent. I think he asked "what road are you riding?" I wasn't sure what he wanted. It seemed pretty obvious to me that we were riding the road we were on

He had little patience waiting for my reply or maybe he didn't want to waste his time with a couple of scooter riders who didn't have enough sense to stay on the pavement and pulled down his faceshield and roared off.



We headed back.  Scooters do just fine on dirt/gravel roads as long as they aren't muddy or too rough.



.



This road was open range.  There were a couple of large cows laying on the side of the road.

[klaviator]

We finished up our ride by riding up to Waterrock Knob.  Well we tried to ride there.  We were about to ride into the clouds so we stopped, took a pic and headed back.



Overall it was a fantastic 3+ days of riding.  It reminded me of my younger days when I would go to HSTA rallies and ride around for a few days with a bunch of sport and sport touring riders.  The speeds on the scooters was a bit lower than in the old days but just as much fun. 

I know that a lot of people consider scooters as something to run around town with but not capable of much more.  The fact is that a 125cc or bigger scooter is capable of much more.  That's one reason I post these ride reports, to show people how much fun scooters can be.

If you want to see the original and full length ride report it is at this link: https://advrider.com/f/threads/full-throttle-touring-150-through-the-rocket-city.647784/page-118#post-38254195

[CROSSBOLT]

Outstanding!