NCR's Terror-Ride

[glwilson]

I, and others, mentioned our experience on Wednesday afternoon and evening on a ride we took in the MV area. So here are the details.

The "Terror-Ride":

Rayski, Stretch, James, Dmac, Bluekaw1600, and I left Wednesday for a long ride to include the "Dragon" and Cherohala Skyway. (We had our wives with us also.)

It was a great ride to the Dragon. We also went on “The Hellbender” to get there. Riding the Dragon up and then back down again was great. We saw one bike crashed along the way. The Dragon was cool to say we rode it.

From there, on to the Cherohala Skyway to Tellico Plains. A great ride along the ridge-top of the mountains, with endless twists and turns.

About halfway to Tellico Plains the clouds kept rolling-in over the high-roads making visibility a small challenge. We contemplated turning around, but didn’t and made it to Tellico Plains.

While in Tellico Plains we met a local that told us of severe weather to the north of us. Large hail damaged his car… we could see the dents. That motivated us to get moving back to MV.

About halfway back on the skyway we encountered the strangest sight any of us have seen. At around 6,000 feet the clouds rolled-in upon us with high winds. I cannot describe the sight, but it was very strange looking -- especially being on a bike riding through it.

It wasn’t a few minutes after when the storm began. Rain, hail, and high winds forced us to immediately stop at the first turn-out.

Visibility was zero, and the rain and hail hurt – even at 20MPH. All of us were immediately soaked to the bone and the 40 degree temp was chilling to say the least. We still had 40 miles to go on the skyway, and another 100+ miles to MV yet. We were not looking forward to the thought of the ride by then.

Saddling back-up after a 45 stop, we continued when the rain let up a little -- although it was still raining-buckets. It was now around 4PM.

We continued at a slow-pace on the skyway… the roads were slick; we couldn’t see well. Leaves and tree branches were covering the road by then… making it precarious to say the least – and daylight was burning away.

Near the end of the 50 mile-long skyway we came upon a huge tree that was downed across the road. A couple cars were blocked and couldn’t go further. A bunch of bikes made it around the tree by going down into the ditch. They suggested we do the same.

After a bit, we determined we would attempt it despite our bikes being considerably bigger and heavier than their bikes were. We couldn’t take pics of this maneuver because the rain was hammering us at the time. We took each bike one at a time through the ditch with several of us holding onto it while someone rode it. We made it after about 45 minutes or so. The cars were trapped there until about 8PM according to what OnStar told them it would take.

Moving on, more and more trees were downed partially across the road; big branches, leaves, and gravel from water wash-outs covered the road. Riding now became a very slow process, and dangerous on the endless tight and twisting-curves.

Meanwhile the rain and hail continued… and the temp remained in the 40’s. Without a doubt, all of us were beyond soaked and frozen by now with the wind-chill.

At this point we didn’t realize we had hours more to go in this weather. Occasional stops were required periodically just to re-group, and to try to take some of the wind-chill off. It didn’t work.

Moving on… we were blocked by the police at one point from taking our most direct route, so an additional “unmarked” detour was required while the storm, wind, and hail continued.

By now, my GPS was shot from the rain so guessing our location and route in near zero-visibility with pelting-rain and occasional hail was a huge challenge… not to mention we still had to negotiate a lot of tight twisting mountain roads that were covered with anything that could have been blown onto them by now. Our speed was at the minimum at this point.

It is late by now… and the sun has gone-down. Now we are in the complete dark of night in freezing-rain and hail on mountain-roads covered with trees, leaves, water streams, and gravel wash-outs. We still had another 2 hours of riding to go by now before getting to MV.

At night, the car headlights were blinding, and distorted our vision through rain-soaked glasses. We mostly had to look over our glasses and windshields to see what was ahead of us.

The last two-hours of the ride were shear-terror… to say the least.

I am serious when I say that; and believe everyone on the ride would back me up on that statement. None of us were sure we would make it back safely by then. Certainly, everyone thought one of us would not make it back safely. All we could do is pray we could while we kept moving-on.

We finally made it back to the hotel at 9:30PM... soaked and frozen to the point everyone was in uncontrollable shivers… so much so that attempting to hold something was difficult to do.

This ride would normally have had us back by 5PM if we had not had the weather.

Once back, the news said it was the worst storm anyone in the area had ever seen.

Just so you know how bad it was… there were “straight-line-winds” exceeding 100+ MPH that pulled 30 foot mature blue-spruce out of the ground by their roots and tossed them a long distance from their location. Roofs of houses were ripped-off in some areas. Large mature trees were taken-out all over the place, and any loose or dead branches were blown-off. Power-lines were knocked-out in several areas. The hail piled-up in some areas around MV, looking like snow covering the ground. (We saw piles still there the next morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway ride we took.)

We are all glad to have survived that experience and hope none of us have to ever be caught in such a bad storm. The ride was a testament to this group of riders in that everyone remained extremely disciplined, calm, and persistent in making it back as safely as possible.

A couple of us are having a special patch made for those who experienced it to commemorate the safe completion of that ride.

Personally, I hope never to go through anything like that again. I am still pulling leaves, gravel, and branches out from underneath my bike!!

[ponch]

Wow, what a travail. Sounds like someone should have been carrying a chainsaw.

[Netnorske]

Geez....what a nightmare! Glad you all made it through safely. It sucks bad when riding loses its fun factor and turns into survival mode....

[ringadingh]

We were also at the the Dragon that afternoon, we heard on the radio that a bad storm was happening about 30 miles away in Tennessee, so we started to head back right then. It was getting quite dark around 5pm we we were but we arrived back at the motel about 5 minutes before the skies opened up. Others in our group got caught in it and arrived a couple hours later.
Im glad that everyone made it back safe and sound after that storm, it was a nasty one for sure.

[cbutteris]

Wow - just getting caught up on the ride here. Sounds like the riding was adventure from go!

Glad everyone made it through all that weather, from start to finish. I was actually trying to watch the radar during the week and never really saw much. Crazy stuff.

[usranger74]

Makes me glad I was back at Base enjoying a stake and beer. Glad to hear and see all of you got back safe.

[Top Cat]

Great write up Greg. Reading it was almost like I was there. Glad I wasn't
It was good to meet you at MV.

[cnc]

I was one of the others that Ring mentioned. We had about 30 min left to get back to the Hotel when all hell broke lose. I have never experienced rain, lightning or wind like that while riding. It was so dark out and the rain came down so hard, visibility was almost nil.
In our case after driving maybe 10 min in that ( seemed like eternity) we found shelter at a small gas station/ convenience store with a roof over the pumps. We pretty well blocked access to the pumps with the bikes, but were ushered into the store out of the storm by the owner and even given all the paper towels we wanted to dry of the bikes seats/visors etc. What a great guy he was. When it let up to a more reasonable rain we continued on to MV. Having just a taste of that storm, I can appreciate what you guys went through. Sure glade you made it back safe.

[Cajunrider]

Greg,
We were just ahead of the storm and skirted it most of the way. We were a group of 7. Darlene and myself, Jim and Annette, Glenn and Anne, and Jamie. We rode the dragon from the resort then on the Foothills Parkway to the Carriage House Restaurant in Townsend, TN for a late lunch. We then followed the Foothills to the Blue Ridge Pkwy back to MV. The most we got was a hard drizzle and some lightning but riding through the clouds was a heck of a challenge. At some points the visibility was next to zero. We got back to MV around 6:30 just before the bottom fell out at the Inn. Nowhere near what you guys experienced but not fun riding through the clouds. No strong winds until we arrived at the Inn. Considering the weather and the roads we all rode the morning after the storm, we were blessed that no one went down. Great write up! I'm happy that we weren't all in your group. The odds were certainly stacked against you guys. Great seeing you again and looking forward to the next one. Take care and beware of those tie down straps.

[cajun2wheels]

I bet that grew a few grey hairs.

[AlabamaNomadRider]

All I can say is wow! Great write up Greg. I am with Tim in that I felt as though I were riding with you.

[ringadingh]

It sounds like a few minutes made a huge difference depending on where you were on your ride that day.

[schoeney]

That sounded like the ultimate white knuckler. Glad all ended well.

[cactusjack]

Sounds like a lot of wet weather for the rally. In Custer, we had rain, hail, and tornado warnings.

I vote to have the 2013 National Rally out here. At least you'll stay dry...

[canedriver]

Thought I was the only one caught in it.

Late that afternoon I decided to go down to the Carl Sandberg national historic site on a solo ride. I got about 10 miles from it when all hell broke loose. I pulled to the side and got my rain gear on (didn't do a whole lot of good) as the temperature dropped a solid 15 degrees in a 30 min window.

I was only 45 miles from the maggie valley inn and it took me almost 4 hours to get back. Several times I gave serious thought to parking it and grabbing a hotel.

I can attest to the thoughts about not making it back. When I pulled up to the canopy outside the inn many people heard me yell "I AM ALIVE WOOOHOOOOO" and it wasn't a joke. That was by far the worse storm I have encountered while on a bike.

The next morning on the waterfalls group ride you could really see the devastation with limbs and such scattered across the road.

Glad nobody was seriously hurt during nationals.