7th Annual "DUCKS
ALONG THE BLUE RIDGE"
April 19-21, 2002
Mount Airy, NC
By
Jim Calandro
It is hard to figure out how when we moved
this event up two weeks, we had the hottest weather to ride in for all the seven
times we have held this rally. Proving
it takes a lot more than hot weather and the threat of thunderstorms to keep the
Ducati fans home this was the biggest DOCC Southeast Region ride to date.
For those who did not show up you missed a great rally.
We had 78 people signed up for dinner and at least another 20 riders who
tagged along for Saturday’s ride. Also
for the first time Ducati North America had two representatives in attendance. Jerry Parrish and Van Singley, the Southeast sales
representative and technical representative respectively.
I
arrived on Friday morning to find several people had come in on Thursday and
were ready for a ride. Dave Gooch
was down from Ontario, Peter Bonner had flown in from Texas, Chris Smith from
Atlanta, Rich Lambrechts from Michigan and Holly Korzilius from Virginia were
all ready to go. Not wanting to
duplicate the ride route for Saturday we started out on the route I had used two
years ago. After a brief tour of
down town Mt. Airy, we headed east out of town on River Road. If you are an Andy
Griffith fan you know this town as Mayburry.
River Road is one of those smooth roads that just follows the nice
sweeping bends of the river and then settles into a series of tighter turns as
you get further up stream. Another
words a wonderful road to warm up on..
We
stopped for gas along the way, the bad news was I had left the key to my Bimota
db2 back in my hotel room!
The good news was, the bodywork can be removed with six screws and the
lock is on the bodywork not the actual tank.
Shortly we were on our way down the road to the nice restaurant they had
told us about. The Castle Rock
Creek Restaurant is something you would just drive by at warp speed if you were
not looking for it. We were all
very glad that we had been told to stop as they have very nice food and
wonderful staff that made our meal one to enjoy.
We then headed out for the rest of our ride. I will admit to grinning
like a fool when all the young people in the restaurant cam out to see all the Ducati's
start up and leave.
Now
the real fun began as we headed further east and got on to route 40.
If you have not ridden this road you have missed a treat.
Not too many side roads and homes but lots of nice tight turns with good
pavement. The only problem
was the further east we got the darker the clouds were.
Peter and Rick got out ahead of the rest of us and missed the turn north
at Furman. The trailing four
stopped and waited as the roads were getting wet and we thought they would
notice we were not behind them and return.
We finally got caught up and decided that we should head west and away
from the storm. We just ”had”
to ride route 40 back and then retrace out steps.
As the event coordinator I needed to head back to the hotel to set up
registration. Peter and Dave
decided to head us Squirrel Gap Road while the rest returned.
Funny how a short ride of only 160 miles of back roads can wear you out
and generate a real appetite.
Registration
opened up a little late at 6:30 PM and we got the 20 pizzas there by 7:00 PM.
I had over 70 names on my list for pre-registration and by the end of the
day was out of T-shirts (80) and had 78 paid dinners.
The 20 pizzas only lasted a half-hour so it was easy to tell we were
going to have a big turnout. Thanks
to daylight savings time we were able to spend lots of time in the parking lot
looking at bikes and telling lies. Bench
racing at it’s best!
Saturday
morning saw us getting ready for the ride and trying to keep the ride groups at
a reasonable size. We used the same
route as last year and again it got high marks. After about 120 miles of incredible roads we ended up in
Mountain City, TN. Cooks Buffet did
a wonderful job as usual and after filling our stomachs we headed out for the
really good part of the ride. We
did learn one important lesson and that is the later part of the ride on route
58 is a solid 35 miles of very twisty roads and we need to schedule a rest stop
along the way. We had four riders
leave the road in the last three miles! No
one was seriously hurt but we will find a stopping point for next year.
Back
in Mt. Airy we got ready for dinner. This
year we had to move the dinner to the Mt. Airy Country Club but it was fine as
they allowed us to add Chicken Parmesan to the menu.
It was a great chance to bench race about the days ride and wait for the
door prizes to be awarded. BMW-Ducati
of Charlotte NC donated some of the prizes and the rest were purchased.
We did have a unique new door prize this year in the form of home made
soap in the Italian tri-color! After
the heat of the day it was a very useful prize. DOCC had sent a few plaques for us to award.
The following got to take home some wonderful plaques:
