The stories that were told of the ride today were and forever will be never ending. It started in Myrtle Beach and ended in the Great Smoky Mountains at the Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, NC for a hosted dinner. Thanks go out to Matt and all who helped put it on.
The day took them through fog, rain, mist and wet roads most of the day. But it was at the Pinnacle Tunnel that the pinball game began. All entered the tunnel expecting some type of lighting (theres always some type of lighting in a tunnel), but not here. They hit the total blackout trying to switch on lights, if they weren’t already on. Add to it that Steve’s prescription lenses are blue and he had his tinted visor down - pitch black! The tunnel was elevated to the left with a left hand curve. The boys made it through first taking the yellow line and bumps in the middle with no problems slowly, AA followed, then Steve and Doug. Steve said it was like pinball. He ended up on the left hand wall hitting the white reflectors on the wall of the tunnel as did Doug. Both of them thought they were bouncing off the other and kept trying to move away. Both came out of the tunnel with skid marks on their sleeves. AA could hear the noise they were making so when she made it to the light again she looked over her shoulder and then went into the guardrail which sucked her in with her crash bars and brought her to an abrupt stop. WOW! She had her hands full and did an amazing job! The guys told her so! They got AA out and watched a pickup back out of the tunnel only to hear the driver yell, “hey, there’s another one of them old bikes in the tunnel laying down with a guy under it.” Steve and Doug took off running only to get to the tunnel with Bartek pushing his Indian out. Everyone took a few minutes to calm down before they rode to the finish. There were more harrowing tunnel stories at the finish, some not so fortunate as The Tribe’s. But one game of pinball is enough!
Everyone taking a minute to assess the damage and calm down.
Checking in
At the finish a future Camnonballer was asking all the riders for their autographs, which was readily done by all.
Pinball tails….
When they got back to the pits, the work began to switch out AA’s tank as the collision with the guardrails had busted her baffle between the oil and gas portions of her tank, along with a sizable bash on the side
Routine maintenance again for everyone and an early night to calm down and relax!
Scenes from the ride
Tomorrow‘s ride will go from Maggie Valley, NC to Murfreesboro, TN in what looks to be a wet ride.
Wow! How lucky everyone made it out safe. You will always remember this one.
Glad everyone is safe