Deals Gap Photo Diary - Spring 2000
Saturday morning Duke and I met up with Leon, Brian and Andrew in Townsend. Here the Ninja squad is prepared for Deals Gap action at our hotel. Brian ponders if his F3 will be able to keep up with the mightly Ninja machines.
The group arrives at the Crossroads of Time after a wet Gap run. The slick roads required us to keep the pace down a bit, but provided a unique challenge.
Another shot of the bike lineup.
After leaving the Gap and heading back up another mountain, we met these guys at an overlook stop. They were all riding some really cool dual-sports...
...like this Triumph Tiger...
...and this BMW F650.
After returning to Townsend following some great riding though various conditions, Brian caught a few z's, while Andrew, Duke, Leon and I tried the Ninjas' strengths as an off-roading machine. Well, these were roads, but not paved roads.
Andrew headed back to Nashville that night, and Brian the next morning. Leon, Duke and I took the long way home, by first crossing the Tellico Plains heading east.
We left the Plains path and followed a dirt road that met the Gap about 1/3 of the way though. This photo was taken when we made it back to the top of the Gap entrance.
Before we started back for our last Gap run of the trip, this fellow showed up on his sweet, heavily modifed Suzuki SV650. He didn't seem too impressed by our bikes though.
Having slayed the Dragon one last time, we went east and then north toward the Smokey Mountains National Park. Here we are in formation en route.
At some point our formation changed, and I got this shot of Leon in the rear view.
Duke glances my way during a flyby.
This was our last major stop of the trip, at the TN/NC border. Not long after this, Leon broke off and headed back to the D.C. area, and Duke and I went west toward Nashville.
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