My motorcycle has become a distant friend that I call on once in a great while when looking for a specific connection. I don’t ride my motorcycles daily or even weekly anymore. Months sometimes go by and the dust settles on the tank. When I do go for rides, it’s often for rides that last several days, and I spend many hours re-familiarizing myself with the machine saddled beneath me. The throttle, the leans, the posture — all assume a mosaic of familiar foreign elements. These things are not quite forgotten in lapsed time, but the light of that lantern hums out only faintly from the end of a long dark hallway, and I have to walk toward it again.
It wasn’t so recent, but recollection hangs close, that on the infamous Rattler, I crashed my motorcycle for the first time in nearly 15 years on a sharp curve near Betsy’s Gap about three miles out from the Trust General Store. To say I was rattled would be an on-the-nose pun, but to admit less would be a lie. This drop was the first time I sent my Triumph Bonneville across the pavement. There’s no glory or secret to it, and no disappearing act, like when Bob Dylan did it in 1966. I was just unfortunate enough to hit a stretch of wet salt in a shady corner during a winter day, and without any foresight for the next moment, was sent sliding across the buttered pavement towards the ditch that held my bike.
After that incident, I rode home with what I thought was a broken (but only sprained) thumb and a dented helmet. I later spent some time changing out the mirrors and directionals that took a beating from the pavement, and then parked the bike again for the rest of the winter. I had no interest in riding, and no call towards the road. But when April dawned with spring in my eyes, I got in contact with my friends up at Crooked Mountain in Floyd, Virginia, and decided to roll the bike out for one of those multi-day jaunts to attend and report on their annual Adventure Rally on the weekend of April 23-26.
On the morning of the 23rd, I saddled my Bonneville and set out for the Virginia state line. I took what has quickly become my favorite route through the Blue Ridge Mountains, gliding north out of Asheville on 26 and leaving the interstate behind on routes 19/19E. Out of Boone on 421, the vast expanse opens up and the bustle of North Carolina’s mountain boomtowns dissipates. Boone’s attempt at sprawl quickly diminishes as the northern roads open up on 221 into Jefferson, leaving plenty of green and room to breathe.
I’ve written about this route before. Prone to nostalgia, a glassy quiet set in as I stared down the familiar fields, the streams that run by in quiet release, and the cows grazing along the banks. The smell of Christmas tree farms activated the hidden memory of the ride from the prior summer, and the scene of the girl riding the horse atop the hill with the sun falling and piercing like a blade over her shoulder returned to vision. Rarely can a sentiment repeat in time like that, like a beat or chorus in a song. Arriving in Virginia, on Route 16, I stopped for gas. A dog across the street peered through porch spindles with his head resting lightly on the spring breeze. His eyes closed gently as I filled up. The evening settled in cooly.
I arrived in Floyd around 8 p.m. draped in the dark and stuttering cold. Like cowboys spread across a prairie, each group of old and new friends who arrived at the rally stood standing among the flames that floated gold-red across their faces. I found a corner of grass at the far end of the flower field to set up my tent and lay out my bags. With a little help from the nearby crew, I was given more light to work with and was able to set up for the weekend ahead. After dinner in town, I fell in with that same nearby crew at the fire and we began our introductions.
There was Thurman, a young but established family man who came in from Norfolk, Virginia, on his forest green late 90s BMW K1200LT, which is a dense and wide touring machine. He sat at the fire making jokes and drinking beers with Chris and Chuck, who rode up from Jefferson, just a few hours south. Chris, who rode a Triumph Scrambler 900, told us about his Volkswagen collection, his family, and the family land he lived on down outside of Jefferson. Chuck rode a Himalayan, as the rally was full of adventure/dual sport bikes, cut out for the terrain that surrounded us. Jason, the slightly quieter one, rode a proper dual sport. He worked in tech and with AI, and we gave him a hard time about it. There was also the duo of Daves, who were both about 20 years my senior, who drank whiskey by the fire and lit up the night with their own brand of humor. Within those aging hours, I found my riding and camping family for the next few days as we made plans for the Friday ride.
Cold mountain air kept us humble through the night. At daybreak, I saw the boys huddling near the remaining smoke. About 130 riders had sprawled across the grassy acres. I missed the breakfast that Brian and Christy had prepared with the crew. Instead, I drank a coffee and met up with Thurman and Jason to talk about a ride. Chris set off for a different route with Chuck that involved dirt, trail, and gravel.
Riders gathered at the bulletin board on the porch of the Crooked Mountain store and began scanning the QR codes for the adventure (on/off road) routes that Brian had worked to provide on behalf of the rally. A key asset to the rally for adventure riders is Brian’s knowledge of the region, which includes the extensive ins-and-outs of the hidden and back roads across and in proximity to the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway (just a half mile down the road). Every year for the rally, he spends weeks gathering information and exploring new roads, working to avoid replication while bringing a sense of adventure to the rally attendees. Each of the routes are also accompanied by an estimation on time to complete them, ensuring riders can return to camp for any of the rally events held throughout the day.
I bid good morning to a handful of the riders, Brian among them. I met the rowdy and younger-than-his-age Nate (a marine turned vagabond) who was up for the rally as Brian’s close friend. I re-acquainted with the spirited Terry from Gearhead Junction, who I met at the time of writing the previous article on southwest Virginia. Hands were shaken and engines were started. With Thurman and Jason, we opted for our own ride, as we did not have the bikes or tires for banging down dirt roads. It turns out that we were going to do it anyways.
We decided to explore the roads north towards Mountain Lake Lodge, hovering near the forested range of southeast West Virginia. We rode Route 8 north and connected to 460. The ride was busy and somewhat fast. Traffic clutters around Christiansburg and contributes to a hive of activity. With the ease-of-riding roads, I was able to get back some of the confidence that I struggled to maintain while on the ride north out of Jefferson, North Carolina. With Jason and Thurman in line, we arrived at Mountain Lake Lodge in the early afternoon. Clouds gathered overhead, threatening but not promising rain. We had lunch at the bar in the lodge. Almost entirely ignorant to our surroundings, I learned on arrival that the lodge existed in devotion to tourism on behalf of Patrick Swayze’s infamous “Dirty Dancing,” as the lodge and lake served as the main setting in the iconic 1987 romance film. The songs from the film flared out of the gift shops. Groups of women and girls were seen walking in and out of the shops and down the roads, bags of merchandise hung ornamentally over their wrists. The lake sat not far in the distance, and was largely drained down to dirt, as it undergoes a cyclical draining period and would not be full again in our lifetimes.
After we had lunch and discussed what it was like to gamble in Vegas with our waitress, Jason headed back toward camp on the route we rode in. Thurman and I looked with adventure at our map and took the road north through the resort and up into National Forest land towards Big Stony Creek road loop. We assumed the dirt road would turn into pavement again, but it never did. Instead, we found ourselves on the edge of society, in and out of public land, under the watchful eyes of (potentially) abandoned trailers. Thurman edged down the road slowly so as not to tip his BMW over. I focused on keeping my tires in line and stayed under 30 mph. At a certain point, we were trapped by our distance in, with too far to turn around and an unknown trek ahead to get out of it.
Eventually, I lost Thurmon behind me and came to find out he freed a woodpecker from being stuck in the netting that draped the side of the road. A good soul in the man. Further down, with a little park ranger guidance at a pull-off, we found our way out of the endless rutted dirt road and back on the pavement. Old Appalachian industry stared us down in the shadows of a dark valley. The mountains poked around us and roadside litter glistened like diamonds in the shallow creeks running parallel to the road. A cement plant was eggshelled in a white dust. The homes did not see the sun. A strange feeling not unknown in the deep rural of Appalachia.
That night, the fires were lit again. I bought two bundles of firewood to keep us warm for the hours ahead. Another cold sundowning. Dinner was served in the cafeteria, as prepared by Brian, Christy, and crew. Nate flew drones overhead. Rallygoers circled the track that Brian built along the perimeter of the property. Burms and bumps, obstacles and gaps. Nate enjoyed taking it all in with his drone circling overhead. Riders gathered and reconvened after a day of riding, planning tomorrow’s excursion. Muddied tires and tanks rode by in the twilight. The fires emerged on the sprawling acreage.
On Saturday, the weather continued to hold out. Rain clung to various mountain peaks. I managed to be up for the coffee and hot breakfast that the rally hosts prepared for us. I planned a new route that I knew would be better than Friday’s. I met Sai, a young rider who was traveling in solo from Roanoke on a Royal Enfield INT 650. I offered him to come ride with me for the day, as Thurman decided to give Saturday a rest. We laid a map across the seat and picked out a loop. We took 681 east towards Callaway, and cut south on Ferrum Mountain road to Ferrum. Sai then planned to go back to Roanoke at Ferrum to get some sleeping gear for getting through the cold night. I shook his hand and vowed to see him later as I cut west to head back towards Floyd, and to complete one backroad loop before rain set in.
I did nearly beat the rain, but the ride was hard on my psyche. Not unlike the Rattler, and with the pressure from local drivers bearing down on the curves, I used more brakes than throttle going into curves and sensed my lack of confidence in the moderately challenging roads. I continued to try and shake the memory of crashing, and the idea of doing it again. Ferrum Mountain road, as beautiful as it is, required more attention than I am used to giving despite having ridden similar roads down in Western North Carolina. At our parting location, I explained to Sai my hesitancy, and he understood. The ride westward to complete the loop eventually challenged me further, but not before a roadside stop at a car show and barbeque cookoff. I pulled off and shot some film, gave a few polaroid photos to the owners of cars in the show, and stretched my legs in walking to see all the cars and trucks. I overheard some older veterans talking about Brooklyn with New York accents. “Even in southwest Virginia,” I thought, with an ounce of humor. The rain continued to threaten overhead, and many of the car owners decided it might be worth it to escape the coming weather.
Forty westward on my loop back to Floyd eventually dumped me off on a two-mile stretch of dirt before I could cross the parkway. The hill was steep and rutted, and I paused before venturing up it, but was able to clear it and to cross the parkway back on to Shooting Creek road. Rain started hitting my helmet as I bounced the rutted dirt with my Bonneville, but I was ultimately able to outrun it. Shortly after returning to camp, sheets of rain fell and the group of us were reunited as we shared stories under tent while waiting on it to pass.
After the weather cleared, Saturday proved to be the peak of the rally. Riders wove their way back and were able to take a rider first aid course, as taught by certified guest instructors. All the tents and trailers, from Gearhead Junction and Triumph of Roanoke (Frontline Eurosports), were set up and demoing product. KTM and Moto Morini bikes stood perched on the grass. Nate started buzzing around the riders with a clipboard, promising a secret challenge to those who signed up. Ten riders eventually put their names to the paper, and at 3PM, Nate unveiled the challenge. Riders, one by one, were asked to run towards their downed and placed bikes, pick them up, race down the muddied grass and circle back, and then ride across a narrow plank. All the riders were timed from the beginning of the run. Terry, the crowd favorite, was unable to take home the first-place prize. For some contestants, carburetor troubles occurred. Some couldn’t make the comeback efficiently. All struggled to glide across the narrow plank of wood without falling. Eventually, a winner was crowned and a prize awarded.
Brian, shortly after the conclusion of Nate’s contest, concluded the day’s events with a product raffle. Helmets, jerseys, gloves, emergency gear, and more were raffled off to ticket holders. Fires were lit and cheers reigned down with each number called. Brian speculated that the rally had reached nearly 150 people by Saturday’s tally, which was the largest on record to date. The ceremony concluded with the distribution of the loot, praise and ‘thank yous,’ and rock band Hard 40 playing a variety of songs well into the cooling night.
I spent the remainder of the night with the original group; Thurman, Chuck, and Chris. Sai made his way back from Roanoke. We burned our fires on the eve of the end, trading stories about the road, sons, daughters, wives, work and hobbies. On Sunday morning, I bid farewell to Thurman and Chris as they packed up to head out. I took one more leisurely but cold ride with Sai to Philpott Lake. The bikes and trailers loaded out throughout the day, concluding a flawlessly executed meetup. After months of hibernating and keeping the motorcycle in the corner, one weekend in the emergent spring served as a reminder of why we ride motorcycles in the first place. Namely, that we know there’s something fundamental to us that is missing without them, and that even for short weekends, we may find ourselves in the company of those who understand that.
