Day 6, Wednesday August 21st
Lake Toxaway, North Carolina to Bakersville, North Carolina
263 Miles, 45.5mph average

We awoke to Day 6 packed into our cabin like a bunch of sardines. We stumbled around tripping over each other and our gear in search of coffee. Fifteen minutes of bleary-eyed poking and prodding every nook and cranny turned up nothing but some ancient Sanka and a plastic bear of Honey. The lack of coffee and the tight confines lead to a lackadaisical start to our day. It's a wonder we didn't all tip over in the loose gravel pit of a driveway as we made our exit. My hopes that 64 would be clearer in the morning were quickly dashed as we merged into a seemingly endless stream of traffic.

	a gastronomical delight (as in gas station)

With our rumbling bellies the only thing keeping us awake, we all began our day in desperate search of some breakfast. Well, actually that's not really true. I'm wasn't desperate. You see, I'm not much of a breakfast person myself. Never have been. Also, I only drink coffee sporadically. This had lead me, the most anal of trip planners, to simply neglect breakfast as part of our official agenda. This was a mistake. The twins especially are in need of coffee every day in order to function properly. Because no prior thought was given to the situation, we generally ended stopping at whatever road side gas station we could find. This did not generally lead to good food. Actually, it didn't really lead to what you could rightly call food. More of a microwavable facsimile of food. You know, like someone faxed you an Egg McMuffin. Yuck. The accompanying picture depicts what may have actually been our worst experience, like someone faxed an Egg McMuffin to a machine that was nearly out of ink. Note Adam and Matt's faces. Yumm. Our wonderful dining experience was enhanced by watching the endless stream of RVs, landscaper trucks, and doddering drivers creep down route 64. Depressing.

After our horrifying breakfast and another half an hour of hell spent on 64 we arrived at our turn off, Route 215, which heads North through the Pisgah National Forest. As we began to head up, things began to look up. Though the road surface was broken, the twists and turns were many, and there was not a soul on the road but ourselves. After the frustrating route 64 we were glad to finally be back at the good stuff. Better yet, after completing the stretch on 215, we turned right back around and headed south on 276 back through the beautiful Pisgah. Now I understand why Lightspeed named a bicycle after this forest, even if it is hard to pronounce. Twice we crossed under sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway we had done just three days before.

Our Pisgah tour completed we hightailed it up Route 280 heading towards Asheville. The tranquility of the bucolic Mills River Valley was interrupted briefly when a pick up truck heading in the opposite direction lost a poorly attached hay bail blanketing the road on impact. We gingerly circumnavigated it, and the pick up driver continued on his merry way none the wiser. You don't see a lot of lost hay bails in New York City or L.A. so we were psyched to find our pothole avoidance techniques were good for something down in the country. Back in Asheville, Matt (now a local by our reckoning since he spent a whole 24 hours there) lead us to M & R Motorcycle and Marine. Adam had called the day before and they promised to fedex a new mirror for his bike. Zac had been complaining about lessening break performance and wanted to have his pads changed. Matt and I were just along for the ride. What was supposed to be a half an hour to forty five minute stop soon morphed into a quagmire that looked likely to consume the entire afternoon. They had overnighted the left mirror instead of the busted right one Adam needed. It took Adam a good hour, starting with the parts manager and moving on up, before he got them to agree to give him a mirror off a showroom bike, which they could replace when a correct one arrived. Meanwhile, it turned out Zac's break caliper seals were leaking and need to be replaced. Because Zac was going to need significantly more time, and we had a long way to go, we decided to split up. Adam and I would follow the original route while Matt would follow his own less twisty one, and Zac would take yet another route designed to allow him to make up lost time and we would all meet up near the end of the day in Burnsville, North Carolina.

It was too bad Zac and Matt weren't able to join us because route 63 to Trust, NC and then route 209 to Hot Springs, NC were truly some of the highlights of the trip. With it just being the two of us, Adam and I got into a groove as we ticked off the miles. The pictures show us back in the Great Smoky Mountains just a couple of miles from the Tennessee border. We had a less then stellar lunch at some bar in Hot Springs. A local fellow stopped to chat with us and then proceeded to rip up and down the main street of Hot Springs on his 80's Kawasaki without the benefit of a muffler. He seemed awfully happy about the racket, but I doubt anyone else was. Then it was on to Burnsville where we met up with Matt and Zac. It was getting late and we didn't want to get caught at dusk trying to negotiate the tight twists and turns of route 80 from Micaville to Bakersville so we set out once again. 80 was a real challenge with plenty of tight blind corners, elevation changes, driveways, and as always, stunning scenery. The owner our hotel for the night had told me that this was one of his favorite roads to bicycle and I could see why. It's intimate scale made it perfect for a bicycle, and especially challenging for a motorcycle.

the Bicycle Inn

We arrived tired and happy at The Bicycle Inn, which managed to oust The Cabin at Sugar Hollow Farm as our favorite sleeping spot of the trip. The place had been hand built by its owner, Michael, and a friend of his. Michael's quirkiness and attention to detail could be seen everywhere. Along with various posters and memorabilia from the bicycle world and Michael's own racing career, his handmade welded objects d'art were strewn about everywhere. The Inn has a wonderful large dining & common room and huge porch perfect for watching the sun settle in. The only thing missing upon our arrival was Michael himself. After searching around for our host for quite some time, he mysteriously appeared before us. Though I'd made the reservation well in advance and confirmed with him the week before, he didn't really seem to understand what the four of us were doing standing on his front porch. An odd conversation ensued where we tried to check in and he kept talking about mixing cement. With every hint about being shown to our room, he seemed to respond with an even more cryptic comment about mixing cement. We finally did get him to show us up to the peleton room where we were staying. As soon as he left us we all started to hypothesize on what he meant by "mixing cement". We were all sure it was a euphemism for something or other but couldn't agree on what. Suggestions included going to the bathroom, masturbating, and plain old screwing in general. The mystery was solved when Matt looked out the window and called us all over to see the most amazing site. There was Michael out on the side of the house mixing cement. Literally, as in he was working on a new foundation for an outbuilding. I think we all especially liked Michael after that.

On Michael's suggestion, we headed over to Sallie's Mountain View Restaurant for dinner. It definitely seemed to be the place to go in Bakersville, and he and his daughter showed up themselves a little bit later. The extensive menu had a few more healthy options than we had become accustomed to lately. While we were waiting for our food, I ducked outside to have a smoke. The waitress came out shortly and informed me in a confidential tone that she was off to go pick up her microwave from home. She jumped into her Subaru and was off. This seemed odd to me, but she was back in time to bring us our food, so I guess it all worked out. I didn't see her carrying in a microwave though. By the time we had paid the check, the sun was pretty much gone. Adam and I switched bikes for the ride back to the hotel. Whooeee, what a monster engine his CBR 929 has. Kind of abrupt fuel injection though. Don't tell Adam, but I had quite a little scare when a dog jumped out of the twilight directly in front of me on the way back to the hotel.