A nice day for a ride in the North Georgia Mountains

We've been having a heat wave here in the Southeast so I wasn't real motivated to go for a ride. I woke up early and decided to go anyway, I'm glad I did. I also wasn't planning on doing a ride report but I met some other inmates and took some pics so here goes.

I got on the road at 7:30 when it was still cool and had a pleasant ride to Dahlonega where I stopped at Riders Hill to pick up some keys I had ordered. They were real busy so I decided to go for a ride and come back later. I took 60 to Suches and then another 5 miles north to ride some of my favorite twisties. Then I turned around.

60 is a great road. Here's a couple of pics:



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I stopped at the gas station in Suches. There was a group of motorcycle riders so I went over to talk to them. One of them said "I know you. You're on Adventure Rider." It's nice to be famous

It was Mikem9. We had "met" on the forum but not in real life. They were planning on riding 180 then 129 over Blood Mountain so I decided to tag along. Here's some pics of the ride:

180



180 approaching Lake Winfield Scott.



This is one of the most dangerous curves on 180. It's along way down if you run wide.



A fun hairpin.



180 has some great curves.

Then we headed up Blood Mountain. I pretty much had to keep the throttle pinned to keep up.



We took a break at the store at the top of Blood mountain.



A dog with saddlebags?



As we were getting ready to head down the Mountain, so were these guys.



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We headed down the mountain before the go carts took off. We had a few minutes of good riding before catching up to a line of slow moving traffic. We pulled over rather than putt around all those great curves. A few minutes later, along came the go carts.



These guys were moving along pretty fast.



The sensation of speed, being so close to the ground must be pretty impressive.

Then we continued down the mountain.




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We stopped at the bottom.



many of the pics I took while riding where of this Versys. I didn't get the riders name but this is his first street bike (he's been riding dual sports) and he just got it a week ago. Nice bike and a great choice for riding these twisty mountain roads.



After that we split up. Nice meeting everyone even if I didn't get most of your names.

I headed back to Riders Hill to get some Lunch. I did notice that Turners Corner restaurant was open. It goes out of business and re-opens on a regular basis. It's at a great location.



I've had some great meals sitting out on that patio just above the river.

The ride back to Riders Hill was pretty slow due to heavy traffic. I had a good lunch there and hung out and talked to many people who I knew. Riders Hill has become the place to hang out for many TWO regulars.

Here's a friends new Buell:



I talked to an ADVr on a R1200GS. I got his name and promptly forgot it. I have a bad case of CRS

Then it was time to Brave the heat and head home.

If I was on my KLR I would have found a way to ride dirt at least part of the way. I skipped the dirt since I was on the scooter. That doesn't mean I had to stick to the main roads.



I prefer getting away from all the traffic.

And who needs 2 lanes anyway?



I took a break at the Amicalola River.



It was pretty hot, the water looked inviting.

Nice report and pics. 60, 180 and 129 are three of my all time favorite roads.

A little North of Canton a GS and Ducati passed me. It was the guys I met at Riders Hill. So I followed for Awhile and snapped a pic.



Then I got on I-575 for a bit. Small Scooters are not the ideal thing for riding on the interstate but I figured what the heck, I'll just stay in the slow lane



It turned out to be a good day for a short 247 mile ride. I'm glad I went

So, let me see if I have this straight. You were chasing a Versys, 1200 Bandit, KTM 990 Superduke, and an FZ1 through the mountains, snapping pics while riding your scooter! :huh You must be crazy. Ha!

Good to meet you Klaviator! -and riding with you. Have enjoyed reading your ride reports in the past. Great report here - really captures some of the good roads up there. You've also given my buddy some pics of his first group ride on the street - thanks.

PS - watching those guys on the gravity go-karts was a trip! Those things were flying. and I went back and looked at that I-575 interstate pic again - 90 mph on a scooter, while taking a photo!

Mikem9

thanks for the thread, ride report, and great pictures
i love this area of the country... it's close enough to where i live for me to enjoy on a "regular" basis. it really has some wonderful roads
thanks for sharing

They sure are great roads. You need to ride them on your Agility 125

Of course I'm crazy. That's why I'm an inmate of this asylum

I found these roads over 20 years ago when I lived in Florida. They are the main reason I moved here.

I got a PM asking how I took pics while riding. I've been asked that before so I'll post it here in case anyone else is wondering.

About a year ago I got tired of always having to stop and pull out my camera to get a pic. Also, it's hard to really show what the ride is like if you only take pics while stopped. So, I decided to start hanging my camera around my neck with a strap and take pics with my left hand. This way, if I need to, I can just drop the camera if needed.

I use an old Casio EX-Z400 digital camera. I will probably upgrade some time but it takes pretty good pictures.

I'm no expert photographer so I make up for lack of talent by snapping lots of pics. Usuelly some of them turn out OK and I can just delete the rest. I don't try to look at the camera to aim it. I just guess. I prefer to keep my eyes on the road. It's not too hard to do with a little practice. I think even a caveman could do it

Here's a recent pic showing the camera hanging from my neck:



This pic was taken at Deals Gap by US129 photographers

For anyone interested, the link for that ride report is here: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=693143

HHAAA Your rock! 2 up on a scoot in the hills is kool. I'm a little big for a scoot but I'd do it for the fun of it. No on ein the riding world cares what you ride. Ride what you brung! Love the RR...

Klaviator: If you don't mind, tell us more about your interest/enjoyment of scooters. I know you are a long time motorcyclist and a very good rider, so it would be interesting to hear your opinions.

I doubt you are too big for a scooter. There's a lot of big guys out there on scooters. You just need to get a scooter that's big enough. Don't be like this guy:

That's a long story, but I'll try to keep it brief. I've been riding over 30 years. I started small and got bigger and bigger bikes. At one point I had an FJ1100 and Venture 1200. I replaced the FJ1100 with an EX500 and I started riding a lot faster AND having more fun. That's when I decided that Bigger was not always better and smaller is often more fun. I've been downsizing since.

About 20 years ago my wife and I went on vacation in Hawaii and I rented a Yamaha Riva 125 for a couple of days. I had a blast on it and it planted the scooter bug in me.

My first scooter was a Kymco Super 8 150 that I got about 6 months ago. I wanted something to ride to work and around town, partially to save gas and wear and tear on my truck but mostly because I thought it would be fun. It was more fun to ride around town than any motorcycle I have owned. I've done a couple of ride reports on the Super 8:

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=647784
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=670468

Then more recently, I sold a couple of old bikes and my wife asked if we could get a bike suitable for riding two up. Nothing I had was a good two up bike. We ended up getting the Aprilia. It might seem like that would be too small but I thought it would work for the type of riding we would be doing. In the past I would always rack up lots of miles and go long distances. More recently, partially due to this forum, I decided to go on shorter rides and actually stop to explore or enjoy all the stuff I used to pass up. I would always see stuff and tell myself: "next time I'll stop and check that out" Now I'm actually doing it.

Also, my wife doesn't really enjoy just riding for hours. I got the scooter with the idea in mind that we would do shorter rides and go for quality, not quantity. If we're going on a long trip, the scooter is real easy to load in the back of the truck.

I like the idea of getting something small but there's not many, if any, small motorcycles available in the US suitable, or comfortable for 2 up riding. Scooters tend to have much more comfortable seats and more storage,

As for motorcycles, I still have my KLR650 and XT350 for dual sport riding. I'm not planning on giving that up.

Last, for anyone interested in a scooter, now is the time to buy. There were a bunch of scooters brought in in 2009 when gas prices spiked. Then gas prices dropped and there was a glut of scooters. Some of them are still left. I got my Aprilia from Riders Hill for $3744 OTD. It's a brand new 2009 with a MSRP of $4699. They still have one left! BTW, I'll put in a plug for Riders Hill, it's a great place to do business and they have some great prices.

Oh Yeah, both my scooters get around 75 MPG, more if I take it easy.

Great post ^
And great rr! Thanks for sharing.

It's been about 10 months since I did this ride report but it was another beautiful day for a ride in the North Georgia Mountains, so I went for a ride. Since the title of the report was perfect already, why start a new one?

It just so happened that I needed to take my Aprilia to get new fork seals (luckily still one month of warrantee left ). So, I drove up to Riders Hill in the morning and decided to ride for the day before dropping off my scooter.

From Riders Hill I went up 60 to 19 and left on 129 over Blood Mountain. It was a great ride but I didn't bother to take any pics until:



At the bottom of Blood mountain I decided to head down Helton Creek Drive. It starts out as a very narrow paved road then becomes a fairly smooth but very twisty gravel road.



No dual sport required here, any street bike can handle it.

Why did I come down here?



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Helton Creek falls of course. I parked my scooter, put my riding gear in the tail trunk and headed down to the falls.

It's a short hike down a narrow path.



Here's the lower falls:



And the upper falls:

After the falls I continued down to the creek crossing.



The water wasn't very deep and I have crossed this creek many times on my dual sport bikes but decided not to risk it on the scooter. This road does go through to the Richard Russell Scenic Highway. So i went back out to 129 then took a left on 180. I had fun on the tight twisties of 180 and blew by a guy in full leathers on a loud, but slow sportbike.
After I got through the tight twisties riders coming the other way gave my the LEO ahead signal so I went into the putt putt mode and enjoyed the great N GA scenery.




I eventualy passed the sheriff near Flatland Rd and then stopped at the Suches Gas station. There were a pretty decent number of bikes there but no where near the crowd that used to be here when TWO was open and this was Dale's gas station. I got a biscuit and juice and had a seat. Flux Capacitor showed up on his KTM so I talked with him a bit. He said the State troopers were hanging out on 60. Since it was a beautiful spring day it was no surprise that there were lots of bikes as well as LEOs out today.

As we were talking an interesting bike rode up. I went to check it out.



I didn't ask him if the rifle was loaded



in case you're wondering, it's a 99 F650. I didn't ask about the story behind it.