April 8th, 4:00am. I am waking up, and just stepping outside of my buddy Jim’s back garage/apartment where I’ve spent the night. He’s just coming over from his house, opening the garage to check on me. By 4:30, we are on the road, him on his BMW 1200RT, me on my Yamaha FJR1300. WHERE TO? First to Ormond Beach, to walk down to the Atlantic Ocean, get a sample of sand and water from the beach.
Start of first morning
For the next 1500 miles, it is nothing but riding. Our first REAL stop is Fort Stockton, Texas, 1500 miles from our stop point. We did that in just under 24 hours from our first gas stop near Jim’s house. A short 4 hour rest, and we head out for the next leg of our trip…
About to leave Fort Stockton, TX
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, BIG Winds, but finally, we make it to San Diego, CA. Coast to Coast in about 46 hours from leaving Jim’s house. We headed down to the beach, gather another sand and water sample from the PACIFIC Ocean this time. And headed to a hotel for a few short hours of rest.
Stopped to chat with from friends in San Diego
After another 4 hours or so rest, we gear up, and begin the 2600 mile trip back to Ormond Beach, FL.
But it wasn’t ALL just riding…
Climbing a cool rock in Arizona (or somewhere out West?!)
Heck, we even had time to stop and visit the ALAMO!
No real stops the whole way back though. We rode straight through, only stopping at rest areas to sleep when we needed to. West Texas got a little crazy with some very high winds, then rain. We stopped there, Jim slept wearing his helmet, both to stay warm (it was VERY cold that night) AND to quieten the noise from the 18 wheelers that were running.
An hour or so nap at a rest area in Louisiana ( or Mississippi?)
That was it all the way back to Ormond Beach. We were VERY sleepy toward the end. BUT, 96 hours after we started, we had ridden our motorcycles from Coast to Coast to Coast 4 days. COOL!
Jim has written a full comprehensive report of our trip, which I will post when I have time to go through it all.
What a great ride up to North Carolina on the FJR1300. Rode up Friday, played all day Saturday and 1/2 day Sunday, then back home by 10:00pm.
The week was pretty crazy, with me not getting home from work before 8:00pm any day that week, and having to change oil and mount a new Michelin Road Pilot 2 tire on Wednesday night. That left me up VERY late Thursday night getting all my gear together, including camping gear, tent, etc.
Friday was pretty crazy, I was supposed to leave Clermont and meet Jim and Paul North of Orlando about 45 minutes from my house at 5:00am, so we could get through Jacksonville before rush hour traffic. Well, thanks to going to bed two hours prior, I woke to the sound of HARD rain… at 5:30am. Not good. I jump up, grab my cell phone that had several missed calls and call to see what’s going on. They are waiting, clear skys where they are. DAMN! Quick check of weather, and there are some pretty bad cells of storms here and there, with the biggest being HERE, right on top of me. It will be like that off and on most of the way up.
We decide for Jim and Paul to start North, I’ll get started and catch up after Jacksonville when they will stop for breakfast. I get ready as quickly as possible, and am out the door a little after 6:00 in a hard rain. I get out of the weather quickly, but the roads are wet, it’s still dark, and early morning traffic is starting to move enough to keep my 45 minute backroad trek to get to our Interstate meeting place a full 45 minutes. Once on I-4, I’m in catchup mode. Out of the rain, I’m doing everything I can to make time on guys I know started 45 minutes before me, and are riding 70-80 miles an hour.
As I get to Jacksonville, I get a voicemail from Jim that they are at an exit in Georgia and ready to roll out. They are exactly 13 miles ahead of me as I exit to get gas, and a little caffeine. Since I’m just pulling in, need gas, bathroom, and coffee, I tell them to go ahead, I’m close, and will close the gap in an hour or two.
300 or so miles of rain, construction zones and slow-downs later, we finally get together at an exit in South Carolina. All day was in and out of rain, some heavy, getting cooler as we headed North. It was a pretty crazy day. Once we were all together, it was only another 150 miles or so up to the cabin in North Carolina(we thought we were tent camping, but last minute change had us staying in a nice cabin). It’s almost at the top of a mountain up a 3.5 mile gated, cattle guarded, steep dirt mountain road. A pretty interesting proposition for two FJR1300′s and a BMW RT1100.(Click photos for full size)
These pics are the flat sections, some of this was pretty treacherous, both up and down.
After the ride to the top of the mountain…
we spent a relaxing evening planning the next days ride.
On Saturday, we headed into Pisgah National forest, and various roads in the area. Were going to ride Blue Ridge Parkway, but one direction was closed due do a landslide, or contruction or something, and the other direction was closed that morning do to SNOW! Yes, as we got to higher elevations, the sporatic rain, fog, mist turned to snow! After a while, we had ice accumulating on our windsheilds.
In the afternoon, things cleared up, and we had a great ride. About 250 miles on Saturday, with some great stops at some local diners. Sunday morning, 27 degrees at 7:00am on our mountain, but warmed to the 40′s by 10 or so. I don’t travel without my running shoes, and got in a two hour trail run up and down the mountain, which was just great. I love running the trails so much.
After that, a huge lunch at Golden Corral before letting the big bikes stretch their legs and take us home by around 10:00pm. Around 1500 miles of riding for the long weekend, with great curvy roads, dirt mountain roads, snow and some trail running. Good times! (CLICK PIC FOR FULL SIZE)
William and I scored cool tickets in a Suite at the St. Pete Forum in Tampa Bay to see Metallica. What a great time, these guys played to a FULL stadium for close to 4 hours. They were awesome. William plays several of their songs on guitar and was loving every second of it.
AND, tomorrow I’m taking a day off work, and hopping on the FJR for a camping trip to North Carolina with a couple of buddies. What a great time that’s gonna be. Leave very early Friday, get back late Sunday.
Jim and I survived our encounter with the Dragon! A very curvy road, no doubt, but maybe a bit over-hyped? Doesn’t matter, it was fun, and thinking about it, maybe not too hyped, it’s very different, many curves, no intersecting roads, and certainly there is NO room for mistakes, or you are going down in a bad way. Kind of reminds me of flying airplanes, not very forgiving of ‘mistakes’.
For the 2 days, an awesome ride, we left about 6:00am from the Service Plaza on the Florida Turnpike. I’m on my Yamaha FJR1300, Jim on a BMW 1100RT. Both bikes are simply incredible, made for just this type of high mileage, any speed from 25 mph curves to 80+ mph Interstate. We covered 1764 miles and 5 states(Jim a bit more), and loved it.
We started in Orlando, but before we were even to Crystal River, we were in heavy rain. We were out of it in just a mile or two, just scattered storms. Soon we were heading up Hwy 19, to Tuscaloosa before heading West on I-10. A little confusion between us at the turn for Dothan, he thought we were taking it, and indeed, I had it mapped on the GPS that we were taking it, BUT I took us another 40 miles West before heading North to Dreamland BBQ, 560 miles, and we were sitting down to a rack of ribs, white bread and BBQ sauce. Yummy. For two guys who’ve run many, many running races over the years, and know how to eat properly, we didn’t exactly eat like your typical ‘healthy’ runner. I know some of our running friends would have been appalled.
After a little chatting with some local Alabamians, and we headed East to Chattanooga. More scattered rain showers as we got close th TN, gassed up, and headed back West to Nashville. I played with the camera on this section, getting some pretty good photos as the sun dropped in the sky, and the rains came and went.
More confusion between us as we got to Nashville, he was ready to make the turn to head back to Knoxville, I showed 20 more miles to go. I think I scared Jim to death with my ‘Buick’ sounding horns as he started to exit and I honked. I’ve done a little upgrade to the bike in that area, and I believe he thought an old lady in a Cadilac was about to run him over! Actually, he was more correct than I on the exit, we took the next exit, headed North, then East to Knoxville. A stop along the way for a drink, and gas, and we got to our hotel in Knoxville just after midnight. 1032 miles according to the GPS.
Next morning, 70 degrees, clear sky’s, and the Dragons Tail was calling. We hit the Foothills Parkway, Dragons Tail, Cherohala Skyway, and into Tellico Plains. Wow! I’ve ridden roads in this area long ago, and if I lived there, well, honestly, I’d probably crash a lot. My safety net was that I had to really be careful and controlled since I was far from home, didn’t know the roads, did not want to drop my big FJR and have to deal with consequences of getting home and putting my buddy through that, and I was already on thin ice with a wife not caring for this long distance motorcycle thing while she’s traveling to Louisiana with the kids.
Funny thing while leaving one of the overlooks on the Cherohala Skyway, this guy pulled out in front of us, like he didn’t want us ahead of him. I couldn’t tell what he was on at the time, just some old rat bike that was going to be in our way, I thought. But when he started riding harder, I kept thinking is sounded JUST like my old KZ1000, that I had in High School and College, a 1979 Kawasaki KZ1000. The guy was riding very smoothly and we’ll say ‘brisk’, I could see he knew the Cherohala Skyway well and was very comfortable at a good pace. He was riding faster than I had previously been comfortable riding that road, because I have NO idea what is around the next curve so I really was being careful. This guy obviously knew the roads from the way he was riding, so I was using him as a guide to take me around the curves. I’m not crowding him, but staying close enough to see what he’s doing, he’s picking the pace up more and more, and finally pulls into another overlook/parking area. I know it’s because he’s got to be near the handling limits of what I’m sure is an old 70-80′s Japanese inline-4 with touring gear, and so is going to bow out and let us pass. As I passed, I saw that it WAS a KZ, and surprised him when I braked hard and pulled in behind him. Jim scooted past us. I talked to him for WAY too long considering Jim and I were trying to knock off the last 500 miles, but it was neat to see that bike.
A lot more similarities that you might think between my fancy,dancy 1300cc Feejar, and the 30 year old 1000cc KZ. We had a nice talk about both having gone through owning twins, triples, different engine configurations, but were both back to being impressed with the big Inline-4 layout. Funny thing, the last time I rode in this area, around the Smoky Mountains, was 25+ or so years ago on a bike almost EXACLTY like this one, mine was red, not black, but same year model, same factory luggage and factory Vetter made fairing. The guy lived local, has multiple bikes, but picked this up for $700 out of someone’s barn, and had completely restored it.
Jim and I rolled into Tellico Plains, our point to get gas, turn South and run for home. But I rolled to the intersection and turned left for home, figuring there’d be gas right there. NOT. After a mile, I realized we needed to go back, so pulled off and waited for Jim. Here he came, right by me, not missing a beat. Uhhhh, Jim?? He didn’t see me, and was on his way South. Sometime’s it’s nice to have a 150hp motorcycle. I caught up to him, we went back to our proper gas stop.
I thought from that point, we would be just cruising South and making good time, on our way home and to our 1500 miles in 36 hours. Well, what I DIDN’T think about, is we were there at NOON… on SUNDAY… on already slow moving two lane country mountain roads. A lot of people go to CHURCH on Sunday, and they usually aren’t in a big hurry, even less of a hurry on Sunday after Church. ARG!!!! We aren’t going to make it at 35mph!!!! Serenity Now Dave! Serenity Now!
I just waited, kept the speed reasonable, was patient and we clicked off the miles, until FINALLY we hit 4 divided lanes were we could really get up to a decent speed. Basically, from just North of Atlanta to Valdsota, GA, we maintained at least 80mph, with a stop for gas. If the left lane was slow and bogging down, I had to find a path on the right. Jim followed, and we just clicked off the miles. As we neared Valdosta, I had an exit picked that I wanted to stop at, but I could see we were also running into a storm. Well, as we got to Valdosta, the lightning started, and the ‘bottom fell out’ as they say. As bad a storm as I’ve ever ridden in. Still, I wanted to get to my exit about 20 miles down the road before stopping and declaring our 1,500 miles complete. (we turn in time stamped gas station reciept to certify the time). Thing is, it was raining so hard, I couldn’t really see, and cars were all turning on their flashers, and slowing to a crawl.
With only 20 or so minutes left in our 36 hours, I couldn’t risk an Interstate stop or big slowdown, or accident, so had to take what we had and stop at the next exit. 1551 miles. We gassed up, parked and went inside to eat a meal.
As we were sitting there, a BIG guy comes up to our table and asks if he had seen us in Atlanta a while ago? We BOTH thought the same thing, did we do something to make this guy mad? Naw, he just liked bikes, had noticed us, and wanted to talk.
We sat there, with about 200 miles left to get home, and started talking about doing another ride. Afterwards, Jim took the lead and we cruised back to our starting point from yesterday, 1700 miles ago. It’s hard for me to fathom riding that many miles, in just a couple days, and enjoying it as much as I did.
I think that’s pretty much due to the Yamaha FJR, and the level of sophistication, power, handling, comfort and features it has available. It was just awesome to ride for that long, in heat(temp gauge showed 102 at times), rain, mountains, interstate, SLOW curvy roads, traffic, two lane roads, and NOT ONE TIME, think ‘ I wish this bike had…’. It had it all, power, handling, comfort, it was perfect.
Good stuff!!!!
I put together a slide show with narration on youtube… Check it out…
Fact is, I’m really hungry for some GOOD BBQ, and REALLY curvy roads on the motorcycle.
With very little prompting from a buddy, the GPS routing software came out and a plan came together.How about a quick run from our homes in Florida, up to the original Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for lunch, then on to North Carolina via Nashville/Knoxville to ride Tail of the Dragon and Cherohala Skyway?
This week, I’m in final stages of organizing, prepping the FJR1300, and route planning for a motorcycle trip with my buddy Jim Sullivan for next weekend.Jim’s a running buddy, who helped me out with my first Western States 100. And we both happen to ride motorcycles.
It’ll just be a short Sat/Sun weekend cruise, about 1700 miles total, to earn both IBA SaddleSore 1000 and Bun Burner 1500 certificates.That’s 1000 miles of riding in under 24 hours, and 1500 miles in under 36 hours.Will the craziness ever end Tamara asks?No, I really don’t think so Honey.
My FJR is a mile munching machine, and I know Jim’s BMW is also. I just mounted a new front tire, have my GPS wired, all the fluids changed and it’s ready to go.
We leave early Saturday from Orlando/Clermont, taking back roads through the Big Bend/Panhandle of Florida, then up to Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Our First Destination…
Dreamland(history) is a little hole in the wall place, a little off of I-20 where Tamara and I used to stop during our trips back and forth from Huntsville, AL to Monroe, LA.
John “Big Daddy” Bishop Founder of Dreamland in 1958.
This was before they had franchised locations all over the Southeast, it was the one and only Dreamland.Never took long to figure out what you would order, as the menu consisted of Ribs and Whitebread(Sunbeam I believe, in the plastic wrapper).That’s it.When your order came, you had a rack of ribs, a complete loaf of Sunbeam bread, a roll of paper towels, and a Coke or Beer.Messy, fattening, always packed, but great food, great atmosphere, great people.
To finish the 1000 mile in a day mark…
After the stop at Dreamland, we’re back on the bikes for the next 500 plus miles, taking a long zig-zag route to Knoxville, TN.Birmingham, Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville.WHEW!
Time to rest.
Second Destination…
A few hours break, and we’ll be hitting the Dragon and Cherohala Skyway.This is some of the best motorcycle riding to be had anywhere.http://www.tailofthedragon.com/
Talk about a roller coaster!This is going to be QUITE different than the straight Florida roads I’m normally riding.I used to travel/camp all over this area on my KZ1000 long ago, can’t wait to get up there and ride again.
After that, it’s down through Atlanta, and interstate highway all the way back home.If all goes as planned, we’ll be back home well before dark on Sunday, with 1700 miles and 5 states under our tires.
What a great day to ride! Got a call from my buddy ‘DirtBikeMike’ last night. He had a free day and wanted to ride. Can’t think of a better way to spend a Wednesday, but riding trails. It was perfect, dry trails, cool, overcast. SWEET!
What have I been up to lately? Building my own electric guitar. William and Ashley both have Fender Stratocasters, and I have bought, then sold a couple different Gibsons to try to find something I like, spent quite a bit of time at Guitar Center playing various axes. Eventually I realized the Strat just seems perfect.
Designed in the early 1950′s by Leo Fender, it is STILL the mainstay guitar of SO many successful musicians. The list of guys that consider(or considered) it their main guitar stretch from Buddy Holly, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd, to John Mayer and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. The Strat’s where it’s at.
Rather than buy another of what we have, I decided to build my own from parts I selected myself. It’s still the same guitar, just a ‘custom’ version done exactly like I want. I started with an unfinished body mostly shaped and routed, then started searching for the neck and other bits and pieces I needed. William helped me with soldering, polishing, installing the tuners, and in general, being another set of hands and eyes to help be sure everthing was set right.
Basically, it has become my obsession over the last couple months to get it finished. Of course, it took much longer than I thought, but I really couldn’t be happier with the result. I have a full picture gallery of the complete process here http://daveharperphotos.irun100s.com/GalleryList.aspx?gallery=95730 You can click each photo to read the description of what process I was working on, and also access full size photos.
I used a Swamp Ash unfinished body. A birdseye maple neck, with rosewood fretboard. I wanted to build a pretty much vintage correct Strat, with my own upgrades as I saw fit. The basic inspiration was from Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One Strat(pictured at bottom of page), thought I obviously did not try to ‘copy’ that guitar, with the enhanced grain, different coloring, different wood, etc. that I used But I used vintage style tuners, tremolo, saddles, string tree, and real bone nut just as would have been on a 1950′s or 1960′s Strat. I did the contouring on the body to be similar to that era. An amber tint to the neck gives that older, vintage, yellowed vibe rather than the bright white maple of a brand new Fender. The decals on the headstock are Fender inspired, but my own take on them. I even stuck a small quote from Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on there. The finish is old school Nitro Lacquer, just as used back in the day. At one time used for automobile finishes, it’s too toxic for that use these days. I replaced the modern, cool abalone fret marker dots with cream colored clay dots, to also give a more vintage look. I think it came out pretty nice. It’s a joy to play, when I can wrestle it out of William’s hands.
This is the body that I actually started with.
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Above is a copy of the actual Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar that was the starting point for what I was wanting to do. Below is a Fender replica guitar of the same. I wanted to do something like this, but actually build a better guitar than I might buy off the shelf, with my own twist on it.
SRV was killed August 27, 1990 in a helicopter crash following a concert in East Troy, Wisconsin, headed to Chicago. Also on stage that night had been Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughan. (though obviously none of them were onboard the helicopter)
William and I did some riding this weekend. The day before, on Friday, I went riding with a buddy, DirtBikeMike. He had a pretty bad crash while following me. I had to go back and find him, he had gone down hard. Arm was very swollen, he’d had the breath knocked out of him, and his ribs were hurting. We could get his bike to start, but something was broke in the gearbox. SO, we had to leave his bike, and I had to ride him out of the woods on my bike, to get back to our trucks, went straight to get ice and ibuprofen. Then got as close as we could to his motorcycle with our trucks. It left me 1/2 mile by the GPS calculation for me to have to go in and push his bike out. Mike couldn’t do anything but sit in the truck. 1/2 mile is a LONG way to push a 350 pound motorcycle on dirt trails! I ran in, and actually got out pretty quick, but that was certainly my workout for the day!
We don’t know these ladies, but Will wanted his pic wit some hot chicks. 
For the 2 days, an awesome ride, we left about 6:00am from the Service Plaza on the Florida Turnpike. I’m on my Yamaha FJR1300, Jim on a BMW 1100RT. Both bikes are simply incredible, made for just this type of high mileage, any speed from 25 mph curves to 80+ mph Interstate. We covered 1764 miles and 5 states(Jim a bit more), and loved it.
I caught up to him, we went back to our proper gas stop.
