DAY 10
9/14/2015 – Guntersville, AL to Maggie Valley, NC
~ 266 miles

Yes, so this is what I found Monday morning while checking out the bike. I hadn’t been as religious as I should about doing the T-CLOCS check each day, but am glad I did so before starting out on my return trip. Rear tire pressure was down several pounds and at first I was like, OK probably from consecutive long days of 2-up riding, plus sitting for a couple days and the cool overnight weather (it was in the low 50s at night now). It was 5 miles in to Guntersville to the nearest service station and the road in between were great for riding, but not so much with low tire pressure.

I had been meaning for a while to buy Aerostich’s mini-compressor:

prior to my first long road trip, and had remembered at the last minute to make the purchase with 2-day shipping. It had arrived the day before departure and was in my saddlebag (thank goodness!).

I pumped up the tire and made to go finish my morning packing, when I decided to check the ENTIRE tire, just to be sure. My heart sank into my gut when I saw the drywall screw head stuck down in one of the treads. I hadn’t had my coffee yet, so I needed to do that and stop to think about my next steps. I had a tire repair kit in my saddlebag and I’d watched videos in the past on how to use them, but had never actually done so. I had no idea where the nearest Honda dealership was. I let Char (who was getting ready to leave herself for the airport) know the situation and headed to the hotel restaurant, which opened at 6:30am.

I was the first one in the restaurant and they informed me that the cook “hadn’t shown up yet”. Great, could the morning get any better than this? Did I mention I hadn’t had coffee yet? I went grouchily back to my room to brew some there, and pulled my laptop open. I had previously imported a GPS POI list of all Honda dealers in the US to Basecamp, so I was able to narrow down the closest ones. The nearest that would be open on Monday and wasn’t out of my way was in Chattanooga. Calling AMA and getting a tow to a dealer would probably kill at least two days worth of my vacation, so I decided I might as well attempt the repair and see how it went. To refresh myself on the process, I pulled up this video from Peak Rider Adventure, which gave me a lot more confidence to proceed.

I broke out the kit and made the repair as instructed. It literally took less than 10 minutes.
I used the compressor to re-inflate the tire once more to the recommended psi and went to go take another shower and calm down, while I allowed the repair to sit for a while. After 15-20 minutes, I rechecked the pressure and it was holding! Feeling better about things now, I completed packing and loading the bike and headed on my way – about two hours later than planned, but not bad considering I had dealt with what I had anticipated as the “worst” mechanical issue that might happen on the trip, with a bike of my age and miles.

I have read a lot of opinions about riding on a plugged tire for long distances and I know some folks feel strongly about it. I hadn’t formed my own opinion about it, figuring I would deal with it when it happened. I know that lots of people have ridden hundreds of miles on tires plugged even multiple times, so it seems that it was unlikely to cause a catastrophic failure of the tire. I decided at this point that I would continue to monitor the pressure regularly and keep aware of dealership locations in case I felt too uncomfortable to continue. I did my first check when I stopped to fill up the tank about 10 miles down the road – still holding and I knew that more miles would heat up the tire and further bond the plug.

On the bright side, the weather forecast for my entire return ride this week looked like great weather and I was really looking forward to the roads I had lined up ahead. I had made some route changes for today’s leg, compared to my original plan. I double-checked the coordinates of a Whispering Giant bonus I’d planned for and found they were wrong, so I adjusted for that. I also decided to re-attempt the Cherohala Skyway on my way to Maggie Valley since we’d been fogged in last week (see, there is always another time and sooner than you may think). My updated route plan:

Char had gotten pretty good taking pictures from the back seat on the way down. Without her on the back, I would now have to figure out the delicate process of taking pictures from the moving bike (when safe to do so). NER folks like Goldwing Bob have this down pretty well and I’ve gleaned some tips from them over the past months. I’d purchased a nice long neck lanyard before the trip for ease of access to the camera and to save it if fumbled by gloved hands. I headed north along the east shore of Guntersville Lake, which was a nice morning ride.

I connected back over to Rte 75 and retraced some of our southbound route back up to the interstate, through Georgia, past Chattanooga. Stopped off in Cleveland TN to get the Whispering Giant there:

Back in Tellico Plains, I was ready for lunch. On the way down, we’d seen a little cafe restaurant, Town Square Cafe & Bakery, that we almost mistook for Tellico Grains. It had been closed that day, with new plate glass windows being installed and we then found the correct bakery after that. I decided to stop in there as it was open and there were a few cars and bikes parked outside. I must say that this was the only truly BAD meal I ate on the entire trip.

The cafe itself was charming, but it appears to be run by an older couple and the woman appeared to be rushing around from table to table with barely a word, trying to get her “work” done so she could gab with her friends sitting at one of the tables. She came to my table and with no welcome or greeting smile, simply looked at me expectantly for my order. When my chicken salad sandwich was served, she scooted up to my table, put the plate on the corner and took off again, barely acknowledging my thanks. The sandwich itself contained more apple pieces than chicken and was served on some type of supermarket bought pre-sliced bread that was falling apart as I tried to eat it. It was edible, but barely. The fries with “special” spices were OK once I drowned them in enough ketchup. I couldn’t wait to get out of there from the moment I ordered. DON’T GO HERE.

Checked my air pressure as I’d been doing all morning (still fine) and got going on the Cherohala immediately thereafter. It runs next to a nice river for the way out of Tellico Plains. There was a lot of mowing work being done on the shoulders on the way up, leaving lots of grass clippings on the road, but it was nice to be able to enjoy the sights and curves of this road today. Lots of bikes out doing the same.

Finished out the skyway and continued on 143 to 28 to US 74, which I stayed on a bit longer to 441-BR to bypass most of downtown Cherokee. Did snap a quick pic of this big indian statue

and then saw the signs for Country Boys BBQ.

Being around supper time and to avoid having to find food in Maggie Valley when I got there, I pulled over and pulled up Yelp on my phone. Based on the great reviews, I pulled in and had my first real southern BBQ meal – ribs, beans, potato salad and slaw, finished off with a nice piece of sweet potato pie with whipped cream.

The food was fantastic, with the rib meat peeling immediately from the bone and even the bone crumbling up when my teeth touched it. The family running the place were very friendly and the atmosphere was very casual with only a couple of customers besides myself and everyone just chatting. Probably slow, it being a Monday evening. I’d highly recommend this place if you are down riding the area.

After that delicious meal, I rode the remaining miles to Maggie Valley Creekside Lodge in a pleasant relaxed state. A good day of riding (and pie) all but cancelled the stress from the morning’s tire repair.