Early one fall morning, late October, I bolted from a hiking trip with friends in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, just outside of Gatlinburg, TN, to head north to the Red River Gorge area in Kentucky, in an attempt to conquer the via ferrata wall in the afternoon. I had worked out routes 1-5 … Continue reading Via Ferrata: Day 6 – Revisit
What I’ve noticed with this approach to learning is that you hum along, making small, incremental gains for a bit, and then all of sudden, there’s an almost vertical feeling of lift-off, a moment when everything comes together and you soar. Today was one of those kind of days! And, I did it in a … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding: Gang Members
Every time you tackle something new in life, broaden your horizons, you find whole new, vast, and sometimes misty, vistas open up to you, friendships develop, and incredible opportunities present themselves. I got the chance to run up and ride with a new, long-time riding, motorcycling friend on a bit of the Cherohala Skyway, one … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding: New Vistas
Some things are simple, you’ve just gotta’ do what you’ve gotta’ do. And in this case, that’s doin’ time, planting you backside on your bike and riding. Today, I rode up and down, back and forth along the Ridge Road, taking the same curves, leaning into them a little more with each pass, upshifting and … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding: Doin’ Time
I set my sites just a little further down the blacktop today. I decided to ride out to Cloudland Canyon, one of my very favorite parks in the area, just over the Tennessee/Georgia state line. To make the stretch manageable, I mapped out a route to the northern, and closer by 4 miles than the … Continue reading Motorcycling Riding: Gellin’
Yesterday I conquered so many new things on my first big, 30-mile ride out towards Lookout Mountain. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Success often begets more success. Smaller triumphs give us the confidence to stretch a little bit more, towards even greater successes. So, today, I went for my own second chance at reaching … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding: Second Chances
Gulp. No crutches. No backup. No security woobie. David headed north up I-75 today, leaving me to either take the deep dive, or hide under the bed. Well, not one to duck the things that scare the living shit out of me, I decided it was go time! I had to fly solo now. I … Continue reading Motorcycling Riding – Flying Solo
After running endless loops around the relatively quiet streets of my tiny neighborhood the day before, I was at that critical, I’m-bored-and-ready-to-move-on stage of learning. I’m fairly landlocked by large and busy roads, so I had scoured my Google maps to see if I could find something that would allow me take the next step … Continue reading Motorcyle Riding; Missionary Ridge
Riding a motorcycle is INSANELY fun - the neighbors must be sick of me by now - spent the past hour and half runnin' up and down all the hills and around the corners, starting off from a stop, mid-hill, cruisin' over the speedbumps and trying to remember to turn my turn signal off and … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding, Mid-Life Crisis
After I ran around the Chatt State parking lot enough to feel comfortable, confirming that this was, indeed, the starter bike for me, David and I decided to head over to the local Cycle Gear shop. David had brought his old helmet for my test ride, but, now I was going need my own helmet … Continue reading Motorcycle Riding, Time to Go Shopping
Smarter-Not-Harder U 