Nov 2025 Bucket list trip to North Carolina and back, over 2400 miles.

[Yabbadabbadoo]

A little backstory first - last year a group of 4 of us Spyder ryders spent 4 days in Vermont and NH and we had a great time riding together and found that we were quite compatible. So for this year I asked the guys to reserve the first week of November for another group trip. Three of us are from Connecticut and one from Maine. Discussing it beforehand, we were interested in going up to Maine and doing the Four Corners of Maine.

Unfortunately as the week approached, my friend from Maine had to cancel as he had the death of a close family member. I called a couple of our other Spyder friends to see if they would be interested in joining us at the last minute but no takers. So it was me (Mike), Rob and Ed.

I tried to post every day of the trip here all at once but I got an error message that it was too long. So I'll post a couple days at a time.

We looked at the weather forecast and found that although it was going to be clear weather for the week, it was going to be in the low 40's in Maine, but looking south, it was going to be in the 60's in North Carolina! And no rain in the forecast for the whole week! So we decided to go for it and left Sunday morning Nov 2 and headed south. Isn't it great to be retired and go where you want when you want? (With spousal approval of course...)

Sunday Nov 2. Although we generally avoid long highway rides, we chose to try to get to NC as quickly as reasonably possible so that we would have more time to enjoy the riding there. Drove I-84 from Waterbury CT to I-81 to Harrisonburg VA, over 500 miles, for the first leg. All three of us have Sena headsets so we can communicate while we ride and it really makes the long rides more pleasant when we can talk, joke and point out either scenic things or other curiosities you come across. Stayed in a Fairfield Inn that had a nice pool and hot tub. It felt great after the long ride!

Monday Nov 3. We rode mostly highway down to southern VA and then side roads and did the Back of the Dragon. Incredible ride! Steep, very twisty, banked curves and scenic. Being early November and cooler, we had the road to ourselves. From there we did a combo of back roads and highway to get to our hotel in Maggie Valley. This was the Comfort Inn. It also had a pool and hot tub which was much appreciated, although they are older and of kind of a rough quality. This was 935 miles for the first two days.


I made a trip chronicle with the Relive app on my phone. This is really cool, it lets you add pictures along the way. I took a ton of pictures on this trip and only a handful are in this chronicle. Maybe I'll post more pics in the future.

Link to my Relive trip: https://www.relive.com/view/v36A9PPmkG6

 

[Yabbadabbadoo]

Tuesday Nov 4. The morning was cold and we had ice on our Spyder covers. The hotel has a container with towels to wipe the bikes. We planned to make this an easier day after two very long days of riding. We did a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Maggie Valley. This section is over 6,000 feet elevation in parts and of course the views are fantastic. We would stop at many of the scenic overlooks and take quick pics or have a stretch break. There was a closure on the Parkway partway up so we backtracked and came down Rt 151 which was steep, curvy and great pavement. We got back to Rt 19, had lunch at Philly Italian Pasta and Subs. Humongous subs for the money! The lady that made them came out to talk to us to see how we liked our subs. You could tell she was very proud of her cooking. After lunch we did a loop that consisted of Newfound Road to Rt 63 (which has a section as good as anything else we'd been on) that connects to Rt 209 - the "Rattler". We rode the Rattler up to Hot Springs and then back down it to Rt 19 and back to our hotel. I bought a Rattler t-shirt on the way. This was about 176 miles for the day.

Wednesday Nov 5. I had downloaded several gpx files from the Maggie Valley Spyder Adventures website that had the suggested rides in the area. We decided to ride the loop including the Cherohala Skyway and the Tail of the Dragon. We all raved about the Cherohala Skyway. It's a lot like the Blue Ridge, with scenic views, elevation and great curves. We even saw a little snow on the sides of the road in one location.

Then we got to the Tail. Whereas before this we had encountered very little traffic and only a handful of bikes, the Tail was quite busy. Lots of high end cars, bikes and other (slow) tourists. I am the fast rider of my group and the other guys just said "go ahead Mike!". So I start cranking away at it and within a short time I'm behind a slow bagger and a car. But there are a lot of turn offs on the Tail and the etiquette there is well known and they quickly pulled over for me. It's quite a fun road! Very twisty, banked curves but not very steep up and down like the Back of the Dragon. Not really a scenic road either. But then of course I was cranking away and wasn't focused on scenery. Lots of go-fast cars and bikes coming the other way. Had another slow car or two but after that I was able to fly down to Deals Gap without interruption nor having to pull over for someone behind me. I was able to park at the store, get off the bike and walk up to the road to await my friends and get them on video. They came down a minute later but I messed up taking the video. They said that they had to pull over for some fast cars, and then a police car was chasing them down and pulled the last one over. We were hoping to get a late lunch at the Deals Gap store but they had already closed the restaurant for the season. This is one of the downsides of riding in November. I can't imagine though, how busy the Tail gets during prime time. Too much of a zoo. From Deals Gap we rode Rt 28 to Bryson City and had a good barbecue meal at the Bar-B-Que Wagon. Then Rt 19 to 441 to a section of the Blue Ridge at the entrance to Smoky Mountains National Park, back to 19 and to the hotel. This was 232 miles for the day.

 

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Thursday Nov 6. Time to start the ride back home. We weren't going to push hard to get home in two days. We wanted to enjoy taking in as much of the Blue Ridge Parkway and then the Skyline Drive in Virginia as possible while making our way back north. Our plan was to get to Roanoke VA area. We picked up the Parkway northeast of Asheville. We drove almost to Mt Mitchell but there was another closure and had to backtrack. Even though there were signs indicating the closure we want to ride as much of that section as possible. Ended up detouring on Rt 19E, had lunch in Burnsville at Hog Hollow Wood Fired Pizza. (We had salads.) They are a local brewery and I usually don't do this when riding but I had to try their Porter. It was quite good. We got on the Parkway again and it is a tremendously scenic section (that a local had recommended not to miss) from Boone up to Virginia. So many scenic overlooks. Rob's Spyder had a hiccup or two starting up at a couple of the scenic stops. He would get and error code and go into limp mode. But then he'd restart the bike and all was well. (More on this later.) We had a bit of an adventure getting off the Parkway and trying to make our way to Roanoke. (Salem actually.) Really nice country roads but it started getting dark and my gps plan would have us getting there too late. I had a very close encounter with a deer. Came around a blind curve to the right and there was a small buck right there on the side of the road! He jumped in front of me and I slammed on the brakes and missed him by inches. After that we pulled up at a local firehouse to take a break. Changed our plans to revert to getting to I-81 which would be much easier to navigate in the dark. Several miles to I-81 and then a half hour to our hotel. It would have been a couple hours of curvy back roads in the dark if we stayed with the original route. Got to the hotel safely. There was a Denny's two doors down and that's what Ed was in the mood for so we unfortunately went there. Poor server was working alone and was somewhat overwhelmed. It took a long time to get served but we were patient. You know you can usually go to Denny's and get in and out of there in maybe 45 minutes. I think it took over an hour and a half by the time we got out. I think I missed the initial part of the trip on my gps but the track log shows 273 miles for the day.

Friday Nov 7. This day's plan was to continue on the Parkway to get to Skyline Drive and get as far north as we could before dark. Took a back road, which was very hilly, curvy and steep to the Parkway. A modest forested lowland area at first but then it goes up on top of ridges with stunning views on the left and the right at the same time. Fantastic! Rode the Parkway until it ends and becomes Skyline Drive. The entrance to Skyline Drive is gated. There was a park ranger stationed at the gate. It's posted that there's a $25 per motorcycle fee for entering. The ranger leans over and said "Since the government is shut down, there is no charge - go ahead." Thanks! Skyline Drive was exactly like the Parkway. Ridges, scenic views, very nice. We needed to get gas at some point and could see that there was an exit for Rt 33 ahead and got off there. Go down the road a bit and pull into a small gas station with only one two-sided pump. I get the pump on the left and there is an old pickup truck taking the right side. Ed and then Rob pull up behind the pickup and wait. The driver is inside the store buying stuff. He finally comes out, then pumps his gas and finally leaves. Ed pulls up to the pump and starts to fill. Rob goes to start his bike to pull up but it's completely dead! No dash no nothing. He's starting to defecate bricks! I had already finished gassing up so came over to take a look. I figured it would be loose battery cables after those previous hiccups he had earlier. We opened up the frunk, got to the battery cables and sure enough they were loose, especially the positive. Rob had a screwdriver handy so we tightened them up and he was good to go! This was the only problem with all of the bikes for the whole trip. Not bad, not bad at all. We continued on the Skyling up to Front Royal and stayed at a nice Wyndham Super 8. Ate dinner at a local place called Mom's Country Kitchen. Seriously good food cheap and they had homemade blackberry or peach cobbler for dessert. We couldn't resist! Wonderful way to end a great day of riding. 281 miles for the day.

 

[Yabbadabbadoo]

Saturday Nov 8. We had to decide whether or not to try to get home from Front Royal in one day or split it into two. The weather forecast was for rain coming in Sunday morning and we wanted to get ahead of that. But we didn't want to have to drive the last hour or two home in the dark Saturday night either. Looking at the forecast a little more closely, we saw that the rain wouldn't start on Sunday until 11 am or so. Plus we wanted to enjoy riding from Front Royal through northern Virginia and Maryland horse country, and up through Gettysburg. So we went with that. Rode north on mostly country roads. Got detoured for a couple of miles on a dirt road next to a river, then up through Harper's Ferry, backroads north, northeast across Maryland and then up Rt 15 into Gettysburg. We spent about half an hour or so in Gettysburg taking pictures and reflecting on the battlefield. Ed is a Vietnam vet and it affected him. After Gettysburg, realized we needed to make some faster time getting further north so we got on Rt 30 to get across the Susquehanna River and up past Lancaster. North of Lancaster we headed mostly up Rt 501 to Rt 183 with some small side detours if there was a good looking side road parallel to the main route. We passed through some small downtrodden looking towns. Pottsville, Mechanicsville for example. Some of these places are rather bleak. I was saddened. Anyway we made it from there up to Scranton to our hotel. Originally I wanted to be further east like in the Port Jervis area, but I couldn't find a reasonable hotel for us. So we went to Scranton. Comfort Suites up on a hill. Got there just as it was getting dark. No food within walking distance and it got dark so for the first time ever I used DoorDash and got us some good food delivered to the hotel. 295 miles for the day.

Sunday Nov 9. Time to get home before the rain comes in. We were now only about 3 hours away using the highway so off we went. It was overcast at first but then had decent sunshine as we got back to Connecticut. Didn't get rain until later in the day. We parted our separate ways to go home and later confirmed everyone got home safe. What a great trip! 168 miles for the day.

I had reset my Trip A odometer before the trip and the total mileage was 2416.8 for the week.


One other funny thing I'll remember. Ed would have some sort of trouble at every gas pump we went to. Either his card wouldn't work, or he'd pull up, get off his bike, lift up the seat, and then notice that the gas pump had a bag on it and was out of order. It was ridiculous how much trouble he had. Then on Saturday we stopped somewhere for gas, Rob was in front of Ed. Rob pulled up to the middle pump, but then the car at the first pump drove off. So he quickly pulled up to the first pump and Ed pulled up to the middle pump. We start pumping gas and Ed says "Thanks Rob, for giving me the pump that doesn't work!" Rob and I started laughing, couldn't believe that Ed was having ANOTHER problem! Then Ed says dryly: "Just kidding." He got us!

 

[Yabbadabbadoo]

Oh yes, I need to make a major update to my States ridden map.

 

[BCNewell]

Looks like a great time!! Thx for posting.