Eastern Mountain Time
Eastern Mountain Time
A backroad trip to the Honda Hoot-in the heat-and a CW Concours rolling through the Smokies
PETER EGAN
"How would you like to come down to the Honda Hoot in Knoxville this year," Editor Edwards asked me, "and be a judge in our Cycle World Rolling Concours?"
I rolled my impressive captain-of-industry desk chair around on its small, squeaky wheels and studied my huge wall map of the USA.
Knoxville looked to be about 800 miles away from my home in Wisconsin, and smack dab in the middle of some of the most beautiful riding country on Earth. Hills everywhere-the topography on my map looked like wrinkled aluminum foil— and a classic jumping-off point for the Smoky Mountains.
“I’d love to ride down there,” I said, “but 1 don’t own a Honda. I’ve had at least 17 Hondas in my life, but I don’t own one right at the moment.”
“You don’t need a Honda to go,” David assured me. “All brands are welcome.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said, “but the other minor problem is that I don’t have a classic bike ready to ride in the Rolling Concours.” I explained to David that I was negotiating on an old BSA 441 Single, but it was too scruffy to bring along without some restoration work. The rusty wheels looked like they’d been dredged up from a shipwreck. I’d be the laughing stock of the vintage bike movement.
“There’s a big group in Knoxville called the Time Warp Vintage Motorcycle Club,” David said. “Good guys. Em sure one of them could lend you something.” “Perfect,” I said. “Then I could ride down there and make a nice road
trip out of it, instead of driving my van with an old bike in the back. I really need a good road trip. I’ve been typing too much lately.”
"Typing" is an old-fashioned term for "word processing," and it still slips out now and then.
So, dark and early on a hot, muggy Monday in June, I loaded the saddlebags on my big, rain-cloud-gray BMW RI 150RT and hit the road. By noon I’d quickly disposed of northern Illinois and part of Indiana on the Interstate, then turned south on Highway 231 and an endless succession of rural two-lane roads and small towns that would take me all the way to Knoxville.
Heading south through Indiana, the roads got better and better, and by the time I stopped for the night at Tell City on the Ohio River I’d done about 200 miles of nothing but dips, rises and switchbacks through beautiful green forest and hills. Indiana Highways 43, 450 and 145 follow a verdant spine of national forests whose roads have to be among the finest in motorcycling.
The last stretch of 145 was closed for construction, but I rode impulsively around the barriers, betting I could get through, and 14 miles later encountered a missing bridge. Inhaling deeply, I successfully took my RT down a dirt bypass, across a rocky creek bed and up the other side to the highway.
Most people don’t realize what a great dirtbike the RT is. That’s because they’re dead. Or recently drowned in a creek.
very cross-country trip needs a secondary theme, and mine, this time around, was Abraham Lincoln. I’m reading a good Lincoln biography right now, so I stopped at his birthplace and boyhood home (two different sites) near Hodgenville, Kentucky, visited the local museum and then rode south on ever more winding roads.
When you look at their little patch of bottomland in its shady valley, you can see why the Lincolns gave up farming in Kentucky and moved to the fertile prairies of Indiana and Illinois. The country in this part of Kentucky is scenic and romantic, but rugged and hard to clear, better for hunting than raising corn.
Around the border, the deep, convoluted valleys of Kentucky gave way to the more open and grand valleys of Tennessee-rural country and roads so beautiful they’d leave John Denver speechless. I rode through the little village of Pall Mall, home of Sgt. Alvin York, perhaps the most famous American hero of WWI. York picked off more than 20 German machine-gunners with his rifle and almost single-handedly forced the surrender of 134 troops who thought they were surrounded.
And they were. By him!
What was it about this part of the country and marksmanship? When I was in the Army we had three guys in my company who couldn’t miss a target, at any distance. They were all from small farms in the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee. Maybe it was all that hunting, and not so much corn.
I looked at my watch. I wanted to stop and visit York’s home, but I had miles to go to get to Knoxville that evening.
Note to self: Leave an extra day for this trip next year.
Soon I found myself riding out of paradise and inching into Knoxville on a short stretch of Interstate clogged with rush-hour traffic and radiant road heat.
I found our hotel, the Knoxville Marriott, just off the Interstate, overlooking the Tennessee River. Walking into that air-conditioned HangingGardens-of-Babylon lobby with its fountains and plants after a hot day on the road was like re-entering the air lock in a space station. Cool, quiet, calm. There I ran into our entire Cycle World gang, just checking-in after a flight from California.
We had dinner and a block party with the Honda folks-who were throwing this shindig for the 12th year-in Knoxville’s nicely restored old downtown. Rows of bikes, mostly Hondas of all types, lined the streets, while Dust to Glory was being projected on a wall at an outdoor plaza. I met one of my offroad heroes, Baja 1000 legend Johnny Campbell, who was grand marshal of this year’s Hoot. I told him I’d ridden the whole Baja 1000 race route last fall with some friends on XR400s. “We only took about a week longer than you did on your XR650,” I explained.
Campbell laughed, but I could tell he was quietly impressed.
The to the next Tennessee morning, Air we Museum all rode out in nearby Sieverville, where event organizer Charlie Keller of the Honda Rider’s Club had lined up rides on a genuine WWII B-17 bomber called “Liberty Belle” (with appropriate sexy nose art). I buckled myself into the starboard waist-gunner position, while others settled into the other battle stations around the aircraft. We took off for a low flight around the countryside, and were free to wander around the airplane after take-off.
I have to say that a flight in a B-17 is more than just an airplane ride; if you grew up on the books and movies of WWII, it’s like a trip to Gettysburg or Shiloh might be for a Civil War historian. The roaring engines, wind noise and beauty of the aircraft make you grin like an idiot, but the knowledge of where you are is sobering. It brings on a strange mixture of pleasure and sadness. About 100,000 young men climbed into these wonderful airplanes to be killed, wounded or captured, and a third of the 12,731 B-17s built went down. Today, there are 14 left flying.
Nearly everyone who took a ride had three comments: 1) The airplane is much more cramped and claustrophobic inside than expected; 2) the bomb bay looks small, considering the amount of hardware needed to deliver the bombs; and 3) the thin aluminum skin of the fuselage makes a poor flak jacket.
On Saturday we had a big group ride up into the Smoky Mountains to a small town called Maggie Valley in North Carolina, home of the famous Wheels Through Time Museum. This huge shrine to American motorcycles is the brainchild of one Dale Walksler, who has so much energy and knowledge about old motorcycles he makes the average enthusiast feel starved for brain oxygen and low on coffee. His collection is magnificent-full of great displays and background settings for the old bikes. A must-stop for anyone on a motorcycle trip in the region.
Dale gave me a ride in an old Henderson Four sidecar rig, and also in his 1949 Cadillac (which I needed to compare with my own ’53 Fleetwood) that used to belong to Steve McQueen. Then he guided us partway back through the mountains on his trusty `36 Harley prototype flathead 80, which he rides almost as fast as a mod ern sportbike, tank-shift and all. Our little CW editorial group was rid ing sportbikes borrowed from Honda-I was on a VFR800-and we were moving right along through the Smokies when Hoyer suddenly decided to ride off a cliff and disappear into the treetops while checking his mirrors. Luckily, he and his CBR1000RR landed in dense brush on an outcropping 6 feet below the road, and hardly any damage was done to either rider or bike. A Ford 4x4 and a local named Dave pulled the bike back up to road level with a rope (see sidebar). Then we rode back to Knoxville and Mark had a mar garita that night. We all did, and toasted his apparently unquenchable mortality.
S aturday, closing day for the Hoot, was Cycle World Rolling Concours day, our seventh-annual event. Turnout and registration at the nearby Civic Coliseum in the morning was huge, and we ended up with more than 100 classic old bikes theoretically capable of doing a 46-mile ride into the mountains-and 42 miles back. A large number of the bikes came from the aforementioned Time Warp MIC. I would later talk to several members who claimed to have moved to this area purely because the riding is so good. One member, Fred Sahms, was kind enough to lend me his nicely turned oul 1969 Triumph Tiger for the ride. This was a very sweet-running bike, and as we swept through the green mountains I found myself reminded that light, simple, unfaired bikes always offer a kind of basic riding pleasure that lured most of us into this sport in the first place. It was also nice to ride without windflow from a fairing roaring around my helmet. No earplugs needed. I followed Mark on his black & gold 1954 Velocette MSS and David on his 1962 BSA Spitfire Scrambler (poster bike for the event T-shirt), reveling in the mixed music of old Singles and Twins and the clacking of cams and pushrods, with the occasional random droplet of oil hitting my faceshield from somewhere.
We all stopped for a picnic lunch at the 4000-acre Keith McCord Farm, a little slice of paradise in the moun tains, and ate the best pork barbeque I've ever had. Mr. McCord declined to reveal the ingredients in his secret sauce, so I guess I'll just have to go back next year.
Only two bikes had mechanical trouble on the ride to the picnic, a Vincent Comet that mysteriously quit running (Mag? Generator? Timing mechanism? Could be anything.) and a Triumph Ti OOC with a rear flat. Amazing. My borrowed Triumph ran like a watch, and I found myself wondering where the nearest copy of Walnecks might be purchased. We all rode back to the Civic Coliseum after lunch, and there the difficult task ofjudging the Concours began. How do you pick the best of three immaculate CBXs or two unblemished Super Hawks? Or three perfect late Sixties Bonnevilles? Is a Bultaco TSS roadracer with a license plate classier than a beautifully detailed Yamaha XS650 flat-tracker replica? Migraine headache time. There was hardly an undeserving bike in the crowd, so we fell back on the usual nuances of preparation, owner history, mechanical detail, rarity and blind prejudice.
We picked many class winners-the newest allowed being 1985 models-but our Best of Show was a stunning BMW café-racer done by Fred Zust from Greenville, South Carolina, based on a 1978 RIOOS. This bike had been featured as the “Rocker Boxer” in our July, 2005, American Flyers section, but photography did not do it justice. An exquisite piece of re-engineering and tasteful styling.
That a party evening at a place we were called all invited the Time to Warp Tea Room, an old downtown bar converted to a clubhouse by owner Dan Moriarity for the 70 members of the club, whose motto is a classic in itself: “We just wanna be free to ride our machines, drink our espresso and not be hassled by the man.”
A great party, with food, live music, pinball machines and walls full of motorcycle posters. Every town needs a bar like this, and I was amazed that a city no larger than Knoxville (pop. 165,600) had produced such an epicenter of hard-core enthusiasm. It must be the mountains and all those great roads. You’d have to be comatose to live here and not think about the pleasures of motorcycling.
At 5:30 the next morning, I climbed on my BMW in the dark and headed home, watching the sun rise over the mountains behind me. At Monterey,
I exited the Interstate again and took the backroads northwest, all the way through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. The weather was extremely hot-100 degrees on most small-town bank thermometers-but it was still a fine 1700-mile round trip on some of the best roads I’ve ever traveled. I stopped overnight in Effingham, Illinois, then paused briefly in New Salem, the restored log village where Lincoln once lived. I tanked up on a gallon of Diet Mountain Dew (Lincoln’s favorite) then headed up the Illinois River toward home. I made it early in the evening.
Would I go to the Hoot again?
Sure. It’s a great event, where, as Hoot Honcho Keller says, “The whole point is to go for a ride, look at other motorcycles and hang out with people who like them as much as you do.”
If that isn’t a recipe for happiness, I don’t know what is.
Next year, however, I might take a vintage bike that can not only make the road trip without melting down, but be eligible for the CIE Rolling Concours. It’s a trip that deserves just the right motorcycle, and I’m already pondering what that might be. It’s a question not to be taken lightly and may require months of careful research and precision daydreaming.
