KZ1300 USA Club Rally 2000'

1st Annual KZ1300 USA Club Rally! - 2000'

Here's some pictures we took while we were at the rally with the CBX club at the Two Wheels Only Resort in Suches, Georgia. This area of north Georgia is just overrun with motorcycles all year long because of the beautiful scenery and twisty mountain roads! The T.W.O. is a great place to hold a rally or just a place to meet up in the morning for a day ride. The main building has a kitchen and enough eating area for about 30 or more people downstairs, plus a few rooms upstairs that you can rent. Outside there's a wrap around deck with plenty of seating and 2 restrooms on the side. There's a pool out back and tent camping all around with a creek running right through the middle coming off a small lake that's across the street. If you come up this way before the sun has been shining long, you may find some fog floating around which will definitely slow you down. They also have an overflow area about a half mile away at a small grass airport which has cabins and a couple of mobile homes to rent. This is a good area for the riders who come in a motorhome or trailer and need more space. It's a large open area that's very flat where you have room to put larger vehicles. The main area only has space for bikes to get in an out, and limited parking for those pulling bikes on a trailer. My parents plan to retire in this area and have property nearby. They've camped in these mountains many times over the years and were at the rally in their motorhome to help us plan our day trips.

This is what the ride into Suches looks like on a Saturday morning in October!

Saturday 10-21, 8:15 am, we have arrived! We rode up from Turners campground where we were staying with my parents. A 15 minute ride turned into 20 or more because of the fog. I see a lot of CBX's but I'm the only 1300! That's Paul, who we rode with all day Sunday sitting behind me, & a few other CBX members walking around talking about bikes & working up an appetite for breakfast! Good food here too!

Same shot from the front, but now I'm taking the picture & Marie is leaning on the 1300. Moments later, my bike falls over, & like a house of cards, knocks over all the CBX's one after the other! Just kidding! That kind of thing only happens in the movies right? But I could sure visualize it after I saw the picture!

And it's off to Blairsville we go to visit the local Kawasaki/Honda dealer. This is a nice new dealership just a few miles from Suches. Everybody had to come out & look at our bikes. They had never seen so many 6 cylinder bikes at one time before! That's Marie again standing beside my bike & waving. I think maybe she's trying to make sure I get her in the picture!

So we ride back to T.W.O. around 11am & what do I see in the parking lot? Another 1300! Bill from Atlanta shows up on his blue 80' so we talk shop for awhile, & Marie takes a picture of the historical event! My bike is the wrecked 84' I bought off my site from a guy in St. Louis with only 20k miles. It was run into a ditch & smashed the right saddlebag & cracked up the front fairing pretty good. You can see that I'm running without the saddlebags as the right one was torn up & the trim pieces on that side are still bent somewhat. The day before we left for Suches, I was putting all the wiring back into the fairing after fixing the cracks. I bought the bike in July, worked on it off & on all that time, put almost 48 hours straight in it before we left, & just finished it an hour before it was time to leave. I felt real lucky that after 4 months of sitting & all the work that was done, that it started right up & performed flawlessly all weekend. Especially after sorting out that maze of wiring inside the fairing! If you ever open up the fairing on this thing & see all the wires in there, it won't take much to figure out that this isn't the part of a motorcycle you want to be working on! Not a job for the fainthearted I assure you! This one has all the options except cruise control. For some reason I've never seen one of these with cruise yet, though I've heard it was a popular option.

Bill's bike was one he bought from a guy in Canada off an ad on Ebay.com that I had listed on my site. It's basically stock, but has a DG 6 into 1 pipe. Runs real strong though! I couldn't get it out of 3rd gear myself! We rode a short distance to Lake Winfield Scott, then over Vogel State Park, which has the distinction of being one of the best State parks in the nation. Then we traded bikes so he could get the feel of what a Voyager rides like & rode into Blairsville for gas. Marie & I went to the local car show & Bill headed back to Atlanta. I remember Bill mentioning something about buying a Voyager when we split up! Thanks for coming Bill!

Marie taking a picture of us while I'm taking a picture of her! Actually, I was putting my sunglasses on & she just couldn't wait. It's our Sunday morning ride & we're in Tennessee headed up Tellico River Rd. off hwy 165 & we've travelled much farther than we had planned to ride today, but we're having fun! That's Paul with the CBX Club showing us the way. We had some other CBX's with us earlier, but they turned back & we kept going!

This is Bald River Falls, TN. They say this is one of the few waterfalls accessible by car. My picture doesn't really do it justice as the falls are 100 ft. high & I only got about half of it. That's Marie & Paul blocking the nice scenery.

Ok, so here's our one big mistake of the trip. We're taking a 10 mile shortcut back across to Hwy. 165 on a fire access road & there's a lot of loose gravel. Paul assures me he's been up this road before & then it was in worse shape. What's a little dirt on the bike going to hurt I say, so off we go. It's one lane, sharp curves in places, & 60 degree drop offs at times on the right side (the side we're on most of the time) that go down 100's of feet. But that's not the scary part really. The worst part was coming around a curve with a drop off & meeting a 4x4 coming at you, and you don't want to stop because you can't back up, he's going too fast to stop anyway, there's no guardrail, you're in loose gravel, well.... you get the picture. I'm riding two up with Marie & I don't know which of us is scared the most! I'm supposed to be in control, but this bikes almost 900 lbs. & the gravel makes it difficult to make it go where you point it. Let's just say that I think we've had enough gravel mountain roads to last us a lifetime.

So we pop out on Hwy. 165, we're still in Tennessee, & we go east a couple of miles & here we are. Big Junction, elevation 5235 ft. We probably climbed 2000 feet in that 10 miles on the gravel road! Next time I think we'll stick to the pavement! There's Marie & Paul blocking the scenery again.

So we ride all the way across the Cherohala Skyway from Tellico Plains, TN. on Hwy. 165, to Robbinsville, NC. on Hwy. 143, except for our side trip to Bald River Falls, & we stop in Robbinsville for lunch. Paul hasn't eaten all day & at this point, it's almost 2pm. I'm supposed to be back in Helen, Ga. to meet my parents who have reservations at some nice place for lunch, but they know me & what happens when I go riding! They went without us. As it was, everything turned out just fine & someone else took our place & bought their lunch to boot! All's well that ends well they say.

We're almost back to Suches and we realize that we never got to walk any of the Appalachian Trail though we've driven past it more than a few times by now. So we pull in Neels Gap & take a short hike. On this part of the trail as well as in many other spots, you're literally walking along the crest of the mountain & you can look off in either direction. The hallway on the right side of the picture is the entrance to this part of the trail. It extends about 2000 miles from Georgia to Maine.

Well we finally get someone to take a picture of the two of us together. A hiker was standing around so I put him to work! This is the view south. The pretty girl is Marie!

Well, we couldn't leave without getting a few shots of the beautiful colors here in the fall!

Ditto! Next year I'd like to meet here again, but if we vote on someplace else...

So here's our hosts for the rally - my Mom and Dad! (right side on both pic's)

and here is a few picture's they took that Saturday on a day trip to Grandfather mountain in North Carolina.

Till next year! Rally 01, Rally 02

Last Update 06-21-01

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