Deals Gap 2001
This was the year that I finally began to burn out on Deals Gap and the south.
Seven trips in one year riding and filming a video that was to be sold through a vendor that hawks Deals Gap crap.
Over a year went into the making of the film. This was just prior to anyones ability to wack out a film with a small camera and a computer and so we spent a lot of time in the editing tape on the Avid.
I have to dedicate this page to Greg Duzey who did most of the editing and taught me a bunch about film and editing along the way. Greg passed away in 2005 after a horrible battle with cancer.
Sadly the film is locked up after a bunch of legal crap with the greedy re-sellers. Another deal where I thought I was doing something cool and nice that turned out to be a deal with a couple of scum bags profiteers.
What that did was change forever my outlook on Deals Gap and after 2002 I never went back. Although the road itself is and always will have a god like grip on sportbike riders and sportcars I'm not real sure it is the best twisty road or the best sportbike riding area in America.
Having ridden most of the West coast many times I think there are longer, safer and twistier roads to sample and enjoy on that side of the country. Not to mention fewer police traps, far lower fines and some incredible scenery.
I will however say that this is an area every rider should sample as there are a lot of roads littered throughout Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia that are worth the trip.
2001 could have been a movie that featured 5, 10 and sometimes 15 of us at our best. We wandered all over the south hunting down twisty roads. A few of the boys crashed, Dean was one of them, crashing his 916 twice, once crashing both his 916 while his friend who was riding his MV Augusta followed him and then crashed into him. The first crash he broke his collarbone on the first day out. He ended up trading bikes with Clayton who had a Triumph so that he could go on riding and then chasing the pain away at night on a bottle of Jack Daniels by the massive 50 foot fire we created to stay warm at Fontana in what was an insanly cold (dipping into the 30's during the day) October ride.
Or Bob Ditner unloading his bike and making it 11 or so miles through the Gap before his YZF with a supposedly rebuilt race motor blew up in a big way (seems they did not put oil in it and he never checked it .... Whats up with that Bob?). My brother Mark then stepped up and let Bob use his brand new Gixxer 750 for the rest of the trip. These were the good old days when we all helped each other and rode with each other because it was fun. (Trackday riding and the folks from TOD and STT would later ruin all of that).
Or David Lee riding bare ass naked on his 916 the Charohala Skyway preserved forever by photography and then hosted on a certain website for a few years.
Or Bojans full on full speed wheelie through Fontana Village right in front of the local police. This brought on a hilarious pullover by the police who were very pissed off and got even more pissed trying in vain to understand Dean and Boo speaking in Croation. They eventually wrote him a massive ticket for being so dumb.
Or in a late night stupor 3 or 4 of us shaving our heads and then finding ourselves in the middle of nowhere the next night on a bike recovery run in a greasy spoon diner with four of Tennessee's finest staring us down. We all thought therewas going to be trouble "Southern style", but they eventually left giving us dirty stares.
And we did get lost..... we got lost a lot looking around for some twisty road we saw on a map. Lots of dirt roads and dead ends in the mountains.
Michele at Mountainbrook had her hands full with the endless all night craziness we brought to her peaceful cabins and dispite all of our insanity her family along with her dad a former Dade county sheriff liked us so much made us join them for a massive dinner at their house overlooking the cabins.
Our endless excessive racing around the southern twistys were culminated by more craziness at night. Mega dollar poker games and partying made for a great time which made for some great friendships and one hell of a memory.
Although we did stay at Fontana Village a couple of times our main place of residence was at Mountainbrook which is an awesome place to stay, and they love motorcyclist!
So many people came along to ride with us at one point we were renting most of the cabins at Mountainbrook (an awesome place to hang your hat if your riding down there).
So to those who joined us for the five years of riding, partying and mayhem, Don Proctor, Jim Brehmer (god rest your soul), Clayton Walsh, Mark Sheldon, Dean & Bojan Miljkovic, Bob Ditner, Don Nangle, Laszlo Mandjik, Iain Pass, David Lee, Mike Metzler . I know I'm forgetting a few of you, aplogies. It was fun while it lasted!
