The BBBRBR Ride to Sierra Nevada, NC
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BBBRBR Ride, 6/6/15 – Sierra Nevada Tour – Mills River, NC
The weather turned out to be terrific for our ride Saturday as we were greeted with clear skies and abundant sunshine. We rolled out promptly at 8:15 from our Cedar Bluff starting point with 11 bikes, counting myself, headed toward Newport to meet up with some other riders joining us there. After a short delay from bridge construction near White Pine, we rolled into the Weigel’s about 9:20. After a brief restroom break, drink, and riders’ meeting, we were ready to head over the mountain towards Asheville. We left Newport around 9:35 with a total of 15 bikes, 2 people riding 2 up, and met up with another in Hot Springs for a total of 16 bikes, and 18 bodies. Members who joined in the ride were Charlie Miller, Jim Wishart, Pat Donahue, Natalie Donahue, Michael Fowler, Lisa Fowler, Craig Rice, Steve Martin, Tom Gilmore, Jeff Emmett, Bill Goldsby, Carl Quanstrom, and George DeVeny had finally let go of $24 to become a member rider again. It was Natalie’s birthday and we were delighted that she decided to spend it with us. We also had a few visitors along for the ride. |
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I received a call on Friday night from Marcos Ruiz, a potential member of the Chattanooga group. He recently moved to Chattanooga from Miami, was told of our planned ride by Pandora’s, and decided to come up and ride along on his GTL. Eddie Bush also came along for our ride and is a potential member for our group unless he was scared away by what he saw on Saturday. A friend of mine, Donny Luke, met us at Hot Springs and spent most of the day with us. He is a recently retired architect who lives in Leicester, NC. His V-Strom was the only non-BMW in the group.
Charlie Miller up and volunteered to help lead half the herd so we wouldn’t get so strung out and lose anyone. He filled in perfectly for my usual herding animal ( the Holky ) who couldn’t make the trip. With the exception of a few minor road construction delays, it was smooth sailing into Mills River. We arrived around 11:10, stripped off our gear, and headed inside for our tour. Nancy would have been proud seeing all those ROK tee shirts. Inside we met up with members Clark and June Luster and their friend Steve Michael who were already in the Asheville area. That brought our total count up to 21.
We started the tour off right….beer before we even got started. While sipping on a Pale Ale, our tour guide and a short video told us the history of Sierra Nevada and how beer is made. To summarize the beer making process for you, the basic idea is to extract the sugars from grains so the yeast can turn it into alcohol and CO2, creating BEER. Just mix it all together in the right quantity, right temperature, for the right amount of time and voila…..you’ve got it! See how easy that was. Here are the 6 basic ingredients for making Sierra Nevada beer at Mills River: Water, Barley, Yeast, this weird flower looking thingie called a Hop, millions of dollars in tax incentives, and 150 million dollars for the plant. The last two ingredients being the most difficult to acquire.
On our guided tour, we saw the fermentation room, water room, brew house, hops room, bottling and packaging areas, and the favorite room….the bar where we received several samples of Mills River’s finest. We were surprised that these huge areas of operation in bottling and packaging are each normally manned by only 2-3 people since the system is so automated. The goal for production this year at the Mills River facility is 380,000 barrels which equates to 11,780,000 gallons of beer. That’s nearly enough to satisfy two of my partners on a hot day at the golf course!
After being dragged away from the free sample bar, we ventured into the restaurant at Sierra Nevada just in time for our lunch reservation. They seated nearly all of us at two long adjacent tables. Charlie and Jim had a nice cozy table for two by the window ( they asked if the lights could be dimmed but the waitress told them that was daylight and they couldn’t do anything about it ). We studied our menus carefully. Hmmm….. no meat and taters. The menu was definitely different, but I didn’t hear any complaints. We dined on things such as “Pig Cheeks”, “ Sausage & Sprouts”, “Stinky Mac n’Cheese”, “Duck Fat Fries”, and my lunch, “The Glutton”, which is a fried chicken and doughnut sandwich, and also describes the person eating it. A few had the more common things such as the “Imperial Burger”, “Wood Fired Clams”, or “House Pizza”.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the lunch and the tour. Heck, Tom enjoyed it so much that he didn’t just leave a tip, he left his entire wallet ( more on that later ). As soon as we finished lunch we all waddled outside to mount our rides and to have a short riders’ meeting about the next leg of our trip. I advised everyone to get gas at my next stop which was just a few miles down the road since the route back would be more lengthy than our ride before lunch. We said goodbye to Sierra Nevada and headed toward our next stop, the gas station.
We topped off our tanks and our visitor from Chattanooga, Marcos Ruiz, decided to hit the interstate and head back home since he had already ridden at least 100 miles more than the rest of us. It was also here at the gas station where Tom searched frantically thru his gear and trunk only to realize that his wallet was missing. Michael and Lisa filled his gas tank for him and he headed back to Sierra Nevada to look for his wallet. Afterwards he would hit the interstate and head back home. In the meantime, the remaining 14 bikes headed out for the rest of the ride on my typical non-direct routes.
We rode some beautiful roads leaving Asheville including the Blue Ridge Parkway, Town Mountain Rd., Elk Mountain Scenic Highway, Ox Creek Rd., Reems Creek Rd., and followed Highway 251 into Marshall, NC. In Marshall, we took a short butt rest break and several scattered on foot to seek out a rumored ice cream shop. I scream, you scream, ROK screamed for ice cream……..but it had changed to a bicycle shop ☹. So, most of us stood in the hot sun watching a few of the smarter riders in the bunch munch on snacks and consume cold drinks they had brought from home. Live and learn.
Leaving Marshall, we went onto Redmon Rd. which winds its way back around to 25/70. We took 25/70 for several miles and turned off onto Lonesome Mountain Rd. Did someone order curves? While stopped at the intersection of this road and Revere Rd., something didn’t seem right because 3 of us waited and waited and waited for the rest of the group. Hmmm….never a good sign. We turned back to locate the rest of the group and about a mile back up the road, we passed them giving the thumbs up, so the 3 of us turned back around and continued the ride ( more details on that later ).
We proceeded onto Guntertown Rd., Highway 208, and made our way back to Highway 107 via Rollins Chapel Rd. We proceeded to our final rest stop of the day on the far end of Newport at a gas station near the interstate off of 25/70. From there, most of the remaining peeled off heading toward home. It was there that I learned the cause of the delay on Lonesome Mountain Road. Apparently, Craig was getting bored with all the asphalt and decided to take his GS Enduro, uh…I mean, GTL, for a little off road riding. Several helped get him back on track with no apparent injuries and only minor damage ( as minor as damage can be on a GTL ). He said the worst part was the insurance company had just paid out $5,000 to get that same side repaired. Does anyone have the name of any good high risk insurance companies? Anyway, just glad he was OK.
It was only Charlie and Craig that accompanied me down all the back roads from Newport that put us into downtown Knoxville. Craig peeled off on 275, I peeled off on Pellissippi Parkway, and Charlie continued on alone all the way to his home in Cleveland. It’s hard to put a mileage on the whole trip since so many people came from different locations with two starting points. I’ll just say it was between 250 and 350 miles. The ride ran a little longer than I had anticipated ( what’s new? ), but with 19 separate lunch tickets at a crowded restaurant, an unscheduled touring bike enduro ride, and a lost wallet, it was destined to take a little longer. I rolled into my west Knoxville driveway at 7:25 hot, tired, thirsty, and still craving ice cream.
To show you that Tom must be living right, when he returned to Sierra Nevada to look for his wallet, he found it lying in the parking lot where his bike was parked with everything intact. What are the chances of that? I’m glad he found it, but sorry he had to miss the rest of our ride.
All in all I think everyone had a pretty good time and enjoyed the tour, lunch, and ride. I know I did. I appreciate everyone coming and filling up the tour with ROK folks. A special thanks again to Charlie for helping me keep a big group held together. No one got lost or separated. That is a small miracle in itself.
Just mark your calendar for the BIG Ride coming up on July 17 and 18 as we head for an overnight trip to Greenville, SC and stop along the way to watch them make 4 wheeled beemers in Greer, SC. Till then, happy riding and keep em between the ditches ( that means you too, Craig ).
Charlie Miller up and volunteered to help lead half the herd so we wouldn’t get so strung out and lose anyone. He filled in perfectly for my usual herding animal ( the Holky ) who couldn’t make the trip. With the exception of a few minor road construction delays, it was smooth sailing into Mills River. We arrived around 11:10, stripped off our gear, and headed inside for our tour. Nancy would have been proud seeing all those ROK tee shirts. Inside we met up with members Clark and June Luster and their friend Steve Michael who were already in the Asheville area. That brought our total count up to 21.
We started the tour off right….beer before we even got started. While sipping on a Pale Ale, our tour guide and a short video told us the history of Sierra Nevada and how beer is made. To summarize the beer making process for you, the basic idea is to extract the sugars from grains so the yeast can turn it into alcohol and CO2, creating BEER. Just mix it all together in the right quantity, right temperature, for the right amount of time and voila…..you’ve got it! See how easy that was. Here are the 6 basic ingredients for making Sierra Nevada beer at Mills River: Water, Barley, Yeast, this weird flower looking thingie called a Hop, millions of dollars in tax incentives, and 150 million dollars for the plant. The last two ingredients being the most difficult to acquire.
On our guided tour, we saw the fermentation room, water room, brew house, hops room, bottling and packaging areas, and the favorite room….the bar where we received several samples of Mills River’s finest. We were surprised that these huge areas of operation in bottling and packaging are each normally manned by only 2-3 people since the system is so automated. The goal for production this year at the Mills River facility is 380,000 barrels which equates to 11,780,000 gallons of beer. That’s nearly enough to satisfy two of my partners on a hot day at the golf course!
After being dragged away from the free sample bar, we ventured into the restaurant at Sierra Nevada just in time for our lunch reservation. They seated nearly all of us at two long adjacent tables. Charlie and Jim had a nice cozy table for two by the window ( they asked if the lights could be dimmed but the waitress told them that was daylight and they couldn’t do anything about it ). We studied our menus carefully. Hmmm….. no meat and taters. The menu was definitely different, but I didn’t hear any complaints. We dined on things such as “Pig Cheeks”, “ Sausage & Sprouts”, “Stinky Mac n’Cheese”, “Duck Fat Fries”, and my lunch, “The Glutton”, which is a fried chicken and doughnut sandwich, and also describes the person eating it. A few had the more common things such as the “Imperial Burger”, “Wood Fired Clams”, or “House Pizza”.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the lunch and the tour. Heck, Tom enjoyed it so much that he didn’t just leave a tip, he left his entire wallet ( more on that later ). As soon as we finished lunch we all waddled outside to mount our rides and to have a short riders’ meeting about the next leg of our trip. I advised everyone to get gas at my next stop which was just a few miles down the road since the route back would be more lengthy than our ride before lunch. We said goodbye to Sierra Nevada and headed toward our next stop, the gas station.
We topped off our tanks and our visitor from Chattanooga, Marcos Ruiz, decided to hit the interstate and head back home since he had already ridden at least 100 miles more than the rest of us. It was also here at the gas station where Tom searched frantically thru his gear and trunk only to realize that his wallet was missing. Michael and Lisa filled his gas tank for him and he headed back to Sierra Nevada to look for his wallet. Afterwards he would hit the interstate and head back home. In the meantime, the remaining 14 bikes headed out for the rest of the ride on my typical non-direct routes.
We rode some beautiful roads leaving Asheville including the Blue Ridge Parkway, Town Mountain Rd., Elk Mountain Scenic Highway, Ox Creek Rd., Reems Creek Rd., and followed Highway 251 into Marshall, NC. In Marshall, we took a short butt rest break and several scattered on foot to seek out a rumored ice cream shop. I scream, you scream, ROK screamed for ice cream……..but it had changed to a bicycle shop ☹. So, most of us stood in the hot sun watching a few of the smarter riders in the bunch munch on snacks and consume cold drinks they had brought from home. Live and learn.
Leaving Marshall, we went onto Redmon Rd. which winds its way back around to 25/70. We took 25/70 for several miles and turned off onto Lonesome Mountain Rd. Did someone order curves? While stopped at the intersection of this road and Revere Rd., something didn’t seem right because 3 of us waited and waited and waited for the rest of the group. Hmmm….never a good sign. We turned back to locate the rest of the group and about a mile back up the road, we passed them giving the thumbs up, so the 3 of us turned back around and continued the ride ( more details on that later ).
We proceeded onto Guntertown Rd., Highway 208, and made our way back to Highway 107 via Rollins Chapel Rd. We proceeded to our final rest stop of the day on the far end of Newport at a gas station near the interstate off of 25/70. From there, most of the remaining peeled off heading toward home. It was there that I learned the cause of the delay on Lonesome Mountain Road. Apparently, Craig was getting bored with all the asphalt and decided to take his GS Enduro, uh…I mean, GTL, for a little off road riding. Several helped get him back on track with no apparent injuries and only minor damage ( as minor as damage can be on a GTL ). He said the worst part was the insurance company had just paid out $5,000 to get that same side repaired. Does anyone have the name of any good high risk insurance companies? Anyway, just glad he was OK.
It was only Charlie and Craig that accompanied me down all the back roads from Newport that put us into downtown Knoxville. Craig peeled off on 275, I peeled off on Pellissippi Parkway, and Charlie continued on alone all the way to his home in Cleveland. It’s hard to put a mileage on the whole trip since so many people came from different locations with two starting points. I’ll just say it was between 250 and 350 miles. The ride ran a little longer than I had anticipated ( what’s new? ), but with 19 separate lunch tickets at a crowded restaurant, an unscheduled touring bike enduro ride, and a lost wallet, it was destined to take a little longer. I rolled into my west Knoxville driveway at 7:25 hot, tired, thirsty, and still craving ice cream.
To show you that Tom must be living right, when he returned to Sierra Nevada to look for his wallet, he found it lying in the parking lot where his bike was parked with everything intact. What are the chances of that? I’m glad he found it, but sorry he had to miss the rest of our ride.
All in all I think everyone had a pretty good time and enjoyed the tour, lunch, and ride. I know I did. I appreciate everyone coming and filling up the tour with ROK folks. A special thanks again to Charlie for helping me keep a big group held together. No one got lost or separated. That is a small miracle in itself.
Just mark your calendar for the BIG Ride coming up on July 17 and 18 as we head for an overnight trip to Greenville, SC and stop along the way to watch them make 4 wheeled beemers in Greer, SC. Till then, happy riding and keep em between the ditches ( that means you too, Craig ).
