Day 1 on the TAT!

A beautiful morning in Tellico Plains and we were out the door at 8:00.  Witt road is the start and in the 1800 it was a trail for wagon trains.  It has worn a bit.  You could see where storms had dropped trees across and someone came through with a chain saw.  My best description is that at best a jeep could travel it. Lots of ruts and rocks and then there are the 4 water crossings.

The first I hit a bit too fast and water splashed up over the windshield then over my head!  But the bike kept going and I made it through and was followed shortly by Keith?  Then the second was the 20 yard wide pool so I slowed down a little and as the bike met resistance I accelerated and BOOM!  Buried in the middle was a rather large rock and the bike rose up and rolled over on me, pinning my right leg! Ouch, my first fall!  Keith came running and we were able to get the bike up and started first crank.  I got across and by now Keith had discovered is trunk open and many things were gone.  Rather than cross he doubled back to search for items on the trail.  He found most of it but in the process dropped his bike 3 times.  The damage report:  1 smashed metal bag on his bike, a broken windshield and rear view mirror on mine!

Sorry I didn't have the Sena camera on my bike but it was a pretty ugly fall resulting in one very sore right foot.  The bike is all wet and so was I.

The first 50 miles was challenging but beautiful.  The following 150 was on gravel roads and paved roads so bad that you wished they were gravel.  The worst so far is the roads paved 40 years ago with tar and pea gravel that hasn't been repaired since.  People continually wave at us and at stops want to find out what we are doing.  We are not expecting this amount of challenge tomorrow but we are expecting stormy weather.  We did have one detour today.  We were on the right road but popped over a hill and came on security gates blocking the road!  The guard walked over to us to let us know we weren't going through!  We figured that out.  Since our maps were drawn up a chemical Co had bought 500 acres blocking the trail.  He told us we had to find a way around the plant.  He also wanted us to tell everyone to stop coming this way! A great day and we got through the challenges.