Foothills Parkway ride

Hello Folks,
Well woke up this morning and saw how awesome the leaves looked down here in the valley, so decided it was time to take a ride to the mountains and REALLY see 'em. Fired up 'Ol Smoky (Yeah my '75 Z1-B 900 with 58K miles is smoking rather much when first started so named it that) and took off by myself for the Foothills Parkway. Taking early retirement means all your friends and such are still working!!!! (so ya just manage). Those of you who are familiar with that infamous windy stretch of challenging road here on the Tennessee / North Carolina border called the "Dragon"
may be familiar with the Parkway cause its one of the routes to get there!! Of course yours truly would NEVER dare anything like that!.... any way I digress, it was rather "Brisk" so dressed all cozy and headed out,
I rode the "Old Walland Highway" to get to U.S. 329 and then go to the Parkway, gorgeous route in and of itself! Old Walland Highway parallels the Little River, so close at times you can almost touch it!! ( Well at least it seems that way!) Finally, hit the Parkway and immediately noticed VERY heavy traffic! LOTS of Motorcycles, and "Cages" as well. Stopped at several of the overlooks, managed to find some fellow bikers and a coupla "Cagers" who were kind enough to take a couple pics of yours truly, I managed to take some decent shots of the views myself. Ran into several Harley guys who were "Seasoned riders" ( older like myself LOL) they all stared at "ol Smoky" trying to figure out what kind of bike / how old it was, one guy who claimed to be an ex Motorcycle cop said he had ridden a "Z" Cop bike and it sure was fast back in the day, I thanked him and rode away.I felt a little uneasy cause they were asking questions about and taking pics of my bike as though it were in some sort of "Freak Show" or something. Course they were all on brand new looking Harley Dressers...
The ride was a little cool as I had left early in the day and of course you know if its cool in the "Flatlands", just wait 'till ya get in the Mountains!
The leaves are almost at peak so there is still a week or maybe 2 for folks to get out and see them.
Happy Riding!
Ed aka TennesseeZ

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Sounds like a real nice day, watch out for those fallen leaves on the twisties :woohoo:

JD

Your story makes me miss home. Grew up in Knoxville and spent many memorable days and nights in the Smokies.

CLICK

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> Big Ed's Ride w/Pics

Here's a brief video I did of the Foothills Parkway.

ED

bluej58 wrote: Sounds like a real nice day, watch out for those fallen leaves on the twisties :woohoo:

JD

+1000 on that,
went down pulling in my driveway, hit some wet leaves and splat :woohoo:
went down the Blue Ridge Parkway today, really nice this year but damn there was alot of people
yea the dragons tail has a rep but i could show you alot of roads here with as much or more twistie factor as that