Bama Rides

Posts Tagged ‘great motorcycle rides in alabama’

Thursday 8 /12 /2010 ((DAY 1))

Redman arrives at Mi Casa. I drink Tecate and Lime while we wait on Crash to finish Wal-Marting.
Im pretty sure we finally left around 20:30.

Without Don R’s help this trip would have been a lot more complicated. Thanks man.

We arrived in Cherokee Alabama at 11PM

It was late. So we had to find a place to set up in the dark. I pulled off of the Natchez Trace parkway at the
first “scenic overlook” sign that I saw. It was a Hot and humid night.

There were lots of stars out that night. I took a sleeping pill and was out with a quickness.

((DAY 2 ))

All packed up and ready to roll out

We headed to the first waypoint on the route. which is called “trail 36″ on the map. it is right on the Mississippi / Alabama
line. We passed this sign on our way to the waypoint.

Like I said in the first post. We would be riding on lands that would likely be Gated or restricted. We had to
do this a lot.
Stickers are fun. We must have put up about 10 of them on this ride.

Always .. ALWAYS investigate if you see road-closed /bridge out signs . road-closed = good road

Im still trying to perfect my “over-the-shoulder” camera shooting skills. its tough when you have no mirrors.
I was trying to get a shot of Crash but… nada.

This is on the way to the Sipsey Wilderness.
Someway we followed the GPS to this bridge. on the other side of the bridge was a tiny parking area, a wooden bench, a kiosk with info on it,
a hiking trail…  and a Horse trail with a gate. we decide to go around the gate and rock the horse trail.

Many,  MANY fallen trees here. this is a laughable one. the sides of the trail were steep, rocky and overgrown with saplings which made bypassing them interesting and challenging.
Spiders freak me out man. and boy did this trail have some. every 20 feet another spider web in the face.

I had baby spiders crawling all over my fucking helmet, down my neck, in my goggles and .. well just everywhere.

Cleaning out the spider helmet

We saw a mail box that was at least 20ft in the air. Crash realized that this must be for “air mail”.
we also saw this perfectly good jeep that was … just there.

The going gets Rough and Tough again. It was a scorcher outside. super hot. super humid. Both Crash and I were falling asleep
and riding. we stopped halfway up this hill and had a little siesta. I had munched a fried chicken sandwich from a gas station
in Cullman a couple hours before this. … and my stomach was requesting a divorce.  Lot of thunder and big purple clouds were moving in.
Riders on the Storm rolls in my helmet. Changed the batteries in my Spot unit.

I was wearing my Alpinestars Bio-whatever-protecto-tech thing. I got Mesh sunburn.

We decide to stop for shelter at one of the hundreds of churches we had been seeing.
We thought we were going to get hammered by a thunderstorm any minute. Crash munched Beef Jerky. it smelled
good.
After waiting an excruciating 9 minutes we took off again.
I was wondering: what do people do out here besides go to church? like WHERE do they work ?
I saw beautiful farm land and amazing farms. This is a Tyson Mill. I guess they make chicken feed for their
Tyson Chicken Farms. ??

The weather was iffy after we stopped at the church. It kept drizzling on us. not bad.

Rode through Atalla. old, boarded up , abandoned middle school there.

We were friggin tired from the heat.

We pulled over into this Hay field. I-59 runs right next to it.
My stomach finally evicted that god damn filthy gutter whore of a fried chicken sandwich.
I spewed into the beautiful meadow. After that I felt 100% better.

Crash’s clutch cable was about to break. He had felt two of the strands “pop”. From this point on he would have to baby it.
Mainly shifting without the clutch. If the clutch cable were to break he had devised a way to make a foot-actuated clutch using
zip-ties and a screwdriver.

I played harmonica until we passed out.

((DAY 3))

It rained on us all through the night. We slept like babies. we awoke refreshed a charged for the day.

We rode through Little River Canyon. Awesome place. great sport bike roads.
We find the good stuff again. rocks , bogs, roots, ruts, mehem.
Wildlife management area near Little River Canyon.

Snapped these after Crash smurfed over. keep in mind he is riding with basically no clutch cable.

Jam it where the sun don’t shine

We were seeing these signs all over Dekalb and Fort Payne
We arrived at Desoto State Park with time to kill. We decided that we would set up our camp then go ahead and ride over
Lookout Mountain into Georgia, Pick up some beer (Dekalb Co. is dry) in fort Payne, head back to camp, get fucking wasted and make a
big fire. It was a perfect plan.  Here are pictures of our camp at Desoto

So, camp being set up we head over the mountain into Georgia.
Here is a picture of a Yankee tagging Yankee road !
this was the first road we saw in Georgia.
We road some great dirt in Georgia  then headed to Fort Payne to buy beer. score

There was a gate near our camp site that with a sign that read: DO NOT ENTER. we got on the bikes and entered
and found a mother load of fire wood. loaded the bikes up and headed back to camp.

Later that night we met a guy named Kim who is a fellow dual sporter. He and his son were camping near us.
Crash gave him a Bamarides card. I put my name and # on it. Pretty sure he will be around soon. He lives near you Debandi.
We roasted marshmallows and exchanged stories.

((Day 4))

ON THE WAY HOME

We had an awesome time testing our bodies, minds, skills and motors. Its sad that it all has to end at some point.
Do it while you can. If its in your head to go. just go.

LINK to my SPOT ADVENTURES account:

We finally got “The Beast” running this weekend, after we cut into the bad electrical, we started rewiring to get a bit of fire where it was needed.  Opened up the airbox, sprayed some ether, jumped the ignition at the solenoid, and boom, she fired.  It took a bit more rigging to get fuel going to it as we did not have a key to the gas tank.  We did also manage to get most of the non-essential gear stripped from the bike also, and it is starting to look like something we might enjoy riding.  Keep in mind, this is a bike that was donated by one of ours members, so we have less than $100 invested in this bike so far, and I am projecting less than $200 more to make it roadworthy (it might take a bit more to make it safe).

The Spring Rally at Faunsdale seems to be the cream of the crop. Several members went down during the week (and a few came up) to get the best spots, and decent real-estate was pretty hard to come by on Saturday, when we rolled in. We had about 45 minutes of rain on the way in from Montevallo, drizzling on and off, but never really had to stop to gear up. Upon arrival, we shortly met up with Bryan and Amanda from Mobile who had set up in a high traffic area near the cow pasture.

After pitching tents and dumping gear, we struck out to find the other folks scattered around the place.  We quickly found the Childersburg crowd, Mark and Sabrina who had been down since Thursday (I think).  We got the banner hung out front and cruised around a bit more looking for trouble.

Naked folks walking around at noon became fairly common and less of a surprise the more you saw.  I guess the biggest shock was just how many acted as if they did it every day.  Most folks that have never been to a rally assume that it just naked, drunken rednecks, running around fighting and acting crazy.  This is just a small part.  The charm is the laid-back atmosphere that allows the self expression of nudity, crazy outfits, a acting a fool if that is your thing.  Or just watching folks relaxed and having a good time – that is my thing.

If nothing else, just sitting around a campfire with your friends, drinking a cold beverage, talking about motorcycles, or riding, or the last fools that rode by is certainly worth the journey, and $25 (for the whole 4 days).  As if that were not enough, the Faunsdale Crawfish Festival is less than a mile away, where you can get live music, mudbugs, crawfish pie and even etouffee.   Fortunately for us, a neighbor two tents away gave us a few plates of etouffee they were cooking in a huge cast iron pot – man that stuff was some of the best I ever had.  These folks were from Lousiana (word travels) and they were doing it all right.

If you did not go, you missed a great time, I think that everyone who rides, should go at least once, and Faunsdale would be a good place to start.  More discussion and pics

Took a short ride up into Blount County to see three of the remaining bridges. We got pics of two and also took a run up into Palisades park in Oneonta. Video to come…

Second part of the Sunday ride after Paint Rock
Nice ride around the lake, then on to the park. It got dark too quick, so not much to see at the park or the overlook

Buck’s Pocket Motorcycle Ride – Best Alabama Motorcycle Rides

Paint Rock Alabama Motorcycle Ride – Best Alabama Rides

Worth the trip

What a great ride. We left Jasper with 11 bikes, and found some interesting places that very few people in Alabama know about. Nice, easy riding, with mostly long, sweeping turns, and scenic forests along the way.

Bankhead National Forest motorcycle ride – more great motorcycle rides in Alabama