Well, we did it. Five of us took the trip to Deals Gap, Three of us on motorcycles, and two in the Miata. We left at 4:30 am on Sept 1st and didn’t arrive there until 2:30 am Sept 2nd. The trip down was 22 hours and 830 miles, and should of only taken about 14 hours and 600 miles. We decided about 3/4 of the way into the trip that it would be better to get off of the interstate and go east on 421 in Tennessee and then backtrack when we hit I-81 in Kentucky and go back west to hit I-75 south. By the time we got to our motel after being on the road for 22 hours we were ready to kill each other. We went to bed and woke up at about 9 am. We woke up to the sound of motorcycles driving by and I was anxious to hit the gap. I walked out and into the morning light to see rain. This kind of bummed me out but we weren’t going to let rain spoil our day. We showered and ate breakfast and hit the gap. I checked my oil in my bike and found it to be a quart low. David was nice enough to take me to “Hell Benders” to buy a quart of Amsoil Synthetic. We then got back on the road to see the scenery. Even though we were all sick of our vehicles it didn’t really bother us to be back on/in them. We then headed to the beginning of the Dragons Tail we hung out there for a bit. Here we got to meet a few people as well as check out the tree of shame and watch riders take off from the straight-away doing wheelies before the first turn into the “Tail of the Dragon”. We then hit the gap and ended up going all the way through it and turned around. Coming back we met David and Craig and decided to hang out at a turn off on the side of the road. I had Craig take some video of Mike and I taking the corners (This can be seen in the video). We hung out here for a little while longer and decided that we wanted to hit the “Tail” some more. Upon trying to leave we discover that Mike has not clutch on his borrowed Honda V65. His clutch is hydraulic and we could not get the cover open to even see if any fluid is inside the reservoir, since one of the screws are stripped to the point of no return. During this discovery a generous off duty firefighter riding his Harley pulls over and gives us a hand. The off duty firefighters name is Mike (also in the video). We concluded that the fluid is probably the original fluid and that we may be able to bleed the line and get it back to running condition. We lifted and propped the tank while trying to trace the hydraulic line. We bleed the line and Pepsi comes out and something in the line ends up clogging the bleeder valve. After cleaning the bleeder valve and reinstalling it we end up with even less pressure in the clutch handle. So whatever pressure we had in the hydraulic line is now lost. While putting the bike back together someone yells “Your leaking gas!!”. And sure enough gas is spewing out of the main line which is connected to the reservoir tank. We end up fixing the line and in the process lose almost everything that was in the gas tank. Mike (Firefighter) ends up staying with us the whole way through until we fixed the line which ended up to be about 3 hours. It’s now dark and we finally put the bike back together and get it back on the road (Also in Video). The next day (Sunday) we end up finding a drill and pulling the stripped screw out and running clean fluid through the clutch line. The clutch starts to work and the Green Machine is back on the road again! The only problem now is there seems to be a valve rattle which was not there before. The bike makes it through the day with out a hitch and we ended up leaving Monday Morning (Sept 3rd) at 4:30am. Along the way through the “Dragons Tail” we encounter a rattle snake in the road curled up, and five or six wild boars grazing on the side of the road. The Green Machine ends up making it back to Elkhart at about 7:00pm Monday evening to conclude the 600 mile trip in 14 hours with the rest of us. We were all glad to be home.

Although the long ride down was well worth it to spend a few days at Deals Gap, next time we are trailering our bikes.

Here is the video Deals Gap Movie

I couldn’t get all of the recorded video into this file. I will be making another video Let me know what you guys think of the video. This is my first attempt at one.