Tenessee & Arkansas

Monday 29th we leave Batesville Tenessee in the chill morning air at 7am. The flow of cool air through our outer shirts and body armour beneath will be a distance forgotten memory in far to shorter a time. The weather here is stiflingly hot and humid. The TAT thus far has to be honest been a little disappointing, in so much as there has been a predominant amount of tar road. Yet it's billed as a coast to Coast dirt ride, which will all change when we get out west, but it's a fuck of a long way to get there

On the plus side of that we have managed to get a quick bit of touristing done at the Jack Daniels factory in Lynchburg, which as was a welcome break from the heat and the road. I was really struck by how old the factory was, nowadays you expect gleaming stainless steel at such places and there was quite a bit, however you felt like a lot of the plant was as it had been from around 1950.

The roads at last become dirt and we can start to use the bike for what they are designed. There is always a compromise with any motorcycle and my bike is not made for roads. The highways have been an absolute ball arch and even on the back roads  I'm finding the gearing too low. But on the dirt she is a lou lou! Fast agile and sure footed, it's more bike than I am rider, but it's such fun😎

The next two days are in a simalar vain, a mix of around 40% dirt the rest tar, some of the dirt is pretty challenging but mainly as I'm trying to ride it fast and the bikes getting a bit squirrelly. But most of the times it's pretty straight forward riding.

A great highlight is the many strange and interesting folks you meet along the way and as I have discovered on my other joyrides in America, everyone is interested in fact that you have "come all the way from England" to ride across their country. Never more so than than in these remote parts of the South, where most people have never been out of their state, let slone their country.

We are averaging 250 miles a day which on slow back roads and in 96 degree heat, makes for long days in the saddle. The first few hours in the morning are perfect, so early starts are our pattern, with a break at the first two to three hours and then about every hour and a half. You need to just get of the thing, grab a cold drink and stretch a little.

We are now in Oklahoma, having dashed through Arkansas, where two of us needed to get new rear tyres and we rode through the Ozark national forest, which offered great riding and our first impassable object in a land slide across the trail. With the magic of GPS we cod easily re route around it and after a long day in the saddle come to yet another dry county! Honestly, in a state where you don't have to wear a helmet and everyone seems to have a gun, you can't buy a frigin beer. On the other hand may be it's not such a bad idea....