MACH 15: Day 3 - Slow-Down Guy

Tuesday Day 3

April 28, 2015

Copyright(c) Jim Beachy, 2015

Last night when I posted a brief travel update on Facebook, our long-time friend Sheryl posted a message that she and her husband Judson live near Lenoir, TN, where we were staying.  I responded with a private message and we set up a meeting point.

Thus by 8:30 AM, we have packed up and ridden the chilly half mile to the Cracker Barrel restaurant Sheryl suggested last night.  The temperature is 42 F.  Sheryl and Judson find us in the country store, and she is fairly jumping up and down with excitement; we haven't seen each other since 2009, she says.  Over eggs, bacon, coffee, biscuits and gravy, we talk about old times and new, the good, the bad, and ugly.

By the time we say good-bye and I load the day's route to the GPS, the sky is a sun-kissed brilliant blue and the temperature has risen to 59 F.  This is another remarkably low-mileage day and I'm hoping to take our time, maybe find a few photos, maybe find a few stopping points.  This is my third attempt to ride US 70 across Tennessee, and I think the third time's a charm.

Leaving Lenoir to the west, US 70 is a comfortable two-lane road with pleasant sweeping turns and a few technical apex turns where the sharp curve also switches from uphill to downhill.  Look sharp for those!

The gentle curves invite a rhythm of leaning and countersteering (on a motorcycle, you "push right to go right, push left to go left"), all the while keeping the eyes level with the horizon, and out of this emerges for the first time in quite a while, the alter ego known as "Slow-down Guy."  I've described my two alter egos before in other writings:  Solo Guy is the one who streaks from coast to coast in 50 hours, or rides 1,000 miles a day just because he can, just for the sheer joy of the Long Road, probably for the same reason the dog sticks his head out of that pickup truck window.  Slow-down Guy emerges only when traveling two-up with Kitty, because the time with Kitty is sometimes best savored without the intrusion of Solo Guy's mad-dash mentality.  Slow-down guy would rarely exceed the speed limit, because why would anyone want to?

And it's Slow-down Guy that gently, joyfully, allows the big bike to lead itself around the sweeping curves and undulating hills.  No hurry today, no sense of the need to cover time or distance, just a sense of being in the moment with Kitty, the exhilaration of the crisp morning and the winding road among the early green Tennessee hills and valleys sometimes dotted with large herds of black cattle grazing contently on the lush spring grasses.

As we stop for a photo opportunity along the winding road, I am dismounting from the bike with a characteristic little hop on my left foot.  My riding boot catches a little offset in the macadam at the side of the road, and I go sprawling backward onto my side and elbow.  Fortunately my leather jacket has armor panels and elbow pads, so no harm done, but I will likely have some sore muscles tomorrow!  This points out one reason Kitty is often reticent to do hiking or climbing adventures:  If I were to be incapacitated due to an ankle sprain or a broken foot, she would need help to get the bike to wherever it needs to go.  So I always try to be careful!

Elevation graph - Cumberland Plateau

Running parallel to I-40, we pass the iconic power plant on the Tennessee River and see the ramparts of the Cumberland Plateau to the north.  I-40 attacks the climb to the Plateau quite a while before US 70, which continues for some miles running through the valley.  Eventually, though, after about 30 miles, we begin the climb to the Plateau in earnest, and a good bit more more attention to the technical 

aspects of the ride is warranted: These curves are a lot tighter, and we have left behind the gentle sweeping curves of the valleys.  The Cumberland Plateau is described as the longest hardwood plateau in the world, running from Alabama through Tennessee and into Kentucky.  It's about 1,000 feet higher than the surrounding terrain, and is clearly evident in the GPS track log graph from the day's trip.  We ride about 50 miles before returning to the level of the river valleys that crisscross Tennessee.  In the lower elevations, the temperature hovers around 68 F.

Taken through windshield

US 70 sometimes turns into a four-lane highway, sometimes with a medial strip and other times not, for the most part winding through the forested hills. At a fuel stop, I decide to reroute to stay farther south from Nashville, and find my GPS map is outdated:  Rt 840 ends on my map, but continues in real life.  I stay on 840 for about five more miles, meanwhile with my poor GPS voice going crazy trying to recalculate for roads that aren't in its memory.

Eventually we find a really, really back road winding along a small stream, and thus to Dickson, TN, where we find a motel next to a restaurant.  We've gained an hour and the GPS time has automatically compensated, so it's about 3:30 local time when we stop.  "This may be a record," I tell Kitty.  "I don't know that we've ever stopped this early!"  She agrees.

At dinner, the waitress automatically asks if she can bring us some drinks, then automatically launches into an apologetic disclaimer that they have no liquor or wine until this Friday.  Apparently Tennessee has a new law that requires every patron who is served alcohol to present an ID.  Apparently the bartender there served alcohol to a minor without asking for ID; the bartender was fired and in punishment, the State of Tennessee has decreed that the restaurant may not serve liquor for a period of two weeks.  Apparently Tennessee takes their new law very seriously!  Meanwhile, the cedar-plank salmon is extraordinary.

So ends another slow-down day wherein Slow-down Guy emerges under a crisp and brilliant sky to pilot his Gold Wing for 200 miles along the miles of US 70 as it winds among the Tennessee hills.

GPS Track (gray)