TAT-2016 Post 28 – Sunday, 20 March 2016 (TAT Day-4)

Day 4 was interesting to say the least. We did 199 miles today, 159 on the TAT and the last 40 riding to the motel in Waynesboro, TN. We bailed off the TAT around 3:30 pm Central. Several reasons:

1               Woodrow laid his bike down missing a dog and had several minor injuries (details later in the post).

2               The temperature had steadily dropped all afternoon to around low 40’s.

3               We had already ridden across several water crossings and several of us had some wet gear.

Lots to describe so will start from early this morning.

1               Terry 2 was planning on joining us for the days ride and I had called him at 5:30 when I woke up to give him time to ride to our motel. He called a short time later and said his KTM wouldn’t start due to a bad kickstand switch. The rest of us had breakfast in the motel and were loading our bikes when he called back and said his bike was fixed and he was on his way. He met up with us a short time later. We fueled up and headed out on the TAT around 8:30.

2               We came upon another road closure with a sign that said “Bridge Out 2 miles”. We all stopped and searched the maps for a bypass and changed batteries in my GPS. In the meantime Steve and Terry 2 rode the 2 miles to check it out. A short time later Steve called on his cell phone and said “come on down”. We all rode down to the bridge and crossed two small water crossings on the way. As we approached the bridge it was actually demolished but they had built a gravel by-pass through the front yard of a house next to the bridge. We continued on our way but anyone riding the TAT I can’t guarantee you will have the same success. Good point is there is an easy bypass that won’t take you very far off-track.

3               During another section we were riding down a 2-lane road and when we topped a hill we see a cow next to the road on the right side and a car stopped watching the cow on the left side. Luckily there was room to ride in between the car and cow but there was still the fear the cow would get excited and move into the road; the cow just watched us go by.

4               We finally had to cross at least 3 water crossings of significant depth or swift water. We had ridden several other minor crossings but these 3 required some scrutiny. The first one we all drove across without any issue. The 2^nd one was deeper and we finally decided to walk the bikes across (except Steve who rode it). Only reason we walked some of the bikes was it was getting colder and we didn’t want any chance of dropping bikes in the water and then have to spend time getting them running again. In addition, Woodrow was not in great shape due to the next item. The 3^rd crossing was even deeper and much more swift. Fact is all three could have been ridden across but we were pretty conservative by this time of the ride.

5               We are riding down a pretty steep narrow road covered with loose gravel at about 30-35 mph. Terry and Steve were in the lead and I was number 3 in line. Trees were right up to the side of the road and about half way down I saw something that looked like a large dog in the trees. I immediately said over the intercom “Dog on right side of the road”. As I continued down the road I was looking in my mirror to try and see what it really was because it looked like a large Collie with tan body and white head but just didn’t look right. I quickly lost site of the dog and then I heard Woodrow over the intercom start saying things like “oh sh__. Oh no and so forth”. I asked, “are you OK” because I figured he had hit the dog. I reached the end of the hill and motioned to the other two riders that something was wrong and I turned around and rode quickly back up towards Woodrow. As I was riding up Woodrow said something about he needed to look at his arm and leg because those were where he had pain. When I reached him he was standing next to his bike which was on its side in the middle of the road. Once I knew he was not seriously hurt I rode another 50 feet up the road and parked my bike in the middle of the road to prevent someone driving down and hitting us. Steve did the same at the lower end. We started inspecting Woodrow for blood or broken bones. He had not hit the dog but had drooped the bike to not hit it. This was actually the best thing he could have done. His protective clothing took most of the abuse as seen by the pictures below. It bent his shift lever and wore off a good chunk of his left hand guard. It also looks like it might have bent his handlebars but not bad enough to stop riding the bike. Steve bent the shift lever out enough to use. Woody wasn’t as lucky. Besides wearing several holes in his jacket and pants he hit hard on his left knee and got a cut on his left arm. He did not hit his head because no marks on his helmet. We finally determined that when he heard me say “dog”  he had started to slow down. That’s when he saw the strange dog standing in the middle of the road looking downhill at me. He said the dog looked like a bloodhound with something white on his head. Not important but the dog didn’t move out of the way. Rather than hit the dog he laid the bike down. He then flew forward landing on his hands, chest and left leg, all of which had protective gear that wore down on the pavement just like they are made to do. After checking Woodrow out we got his bike ready again and we continued on the TAT. He is such a lucky guy, once again. We had actually put him in the back figuring we three would be able to warn him of any dangerous situation but who could anticipate a crazy looking dog coming out of the trees after 3 riders had already gone by. What really worked against Woodrow was he was in the middle of the road and that was where the loose gravel had accumulated. When he hit his brakes the front wheel locked up as seen by the skid marks and the bike went down.

6               We finally reached a point on the TAT that was going to take us back into the backcountry with more water crossings. It was getting extremely cold and my 2^nd GPS said it was 40 miles to the Motel if we went the shortest way and we had at least 65 miles of TAT to ride. I stopped and asked the other three riders what they wanted to do. All agreed to head to the motel. We rode a painful 40 miles into a strong and cold headwind with SNOW the last 2 miles! It was a good decision to bail out and head to the motel as seen by the pictures of the snow falling and on our bike covers.

Todays riding statistics:

199 Miles ridden, 159 on TAT and 40 to motel at 50-55 mph

Moving time 6 hrs 16 min

Stopped time 2 hrs 15 min

Moving average 31.7 mph

Overall average 23.3 mph

This section of the TAT is 90% 2 lane paved and 10% gravel roads.

We spent the evening eating delivered food with some beer we bought nearby and discussing the plans for the next few days. The forecast for our location is 20’s in the morning but finally getting up to 50’s mid day. We have 325 miles to get home and none of us want to ride interstates on these bikes. We plan on leaving around 10 am and driving halfway to Little Rock, spend the night and finish on Tuesday. Counting today we have ridden around 1100 miles from Charleston, SC. The weather has been dry so we have been very lucky. When we reach home we will have ridden from the East coast to Little Rock and will go back in a month or so (when it’s warm) to get the TAT sections we missed.

Main moral for this story is buy good protective riding gear and wear it even if it is hot. It saved Woodrow a lot of pain today.