Tuk for muktuk

[phoo]

What an amazing trip! Thanks for sharing.


~Patrick

[Twist]

The final leg of this epic ride was concluded Saturday with my ride home to Annapolis from Georgia. I dropped in to Coach's home where he was gracious to let me do an oil and filter change on my bike before starting my way home.

I grew up in N.Georgia so all the best places to ride there were very well known to me and I go back frequently. For those of you know the area: I rode up to Dahlonega and took 19 north to 60 up to Suches. That route up to Suches on 60 and Wolf Pen Gap (180) are a couple of my favorite roads I'd rather be riding than places like Deals Gap. It had been raining so the road was wet but there weren't too may leaves but still I rode it at about 5/10ths just to be conservative. Dropping down in to Vogel and took a couple of turns over on to Richard B Russell Parkway that starts out on fast sweepers and then really tightens up on the east end of it. From there I meandered through Unicoi and Barton Lake to Highlands and Cassiers on 64 up to another one of my favorite roads 215 from 64 up to the Blue Ridge Pkwy. Unfortunately 215 is not a very well traveled road so it was covered in wet leaves, and then it started raining - not the fun ride this usually presents. I did a few miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway but at elevation is was a lot colder and rained on and off so I bailed on it to Bristol.





Here's a little bit of video from Wolf Pen Gap Rd:


With all this rambling around in the hills of N. Georgia and NC, I only made it as far as Bristol TN. It was cool and wet so I decided against camping and grabbed a hotel room. Then yesterday after a 425 mile day through the backroads of Virginia I rolled up to home at just before dark.

The final mileage on the entire trip (obviously not including shipping from Boise to Atlanta) was 9,376 miles. That's Annapolis to Calgary to Tuk and back to Boise, then Conyers GA to Annapolis MD. Because I took the longer and more fun way home from Georgia so those two days were 976 miles on the end.
It was a total of 32 riding days broken up over three phases starting in June.

For anyone that doubts the mileage you can get out of a set Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires, here's photos of the front and rear taken this morning in my garage:





I ride pretty hard and fast on the pavement, especially interstate, and not particularly easy on tires. The rear is very squared off but had plenty of tread for the final ride home. I would not hesitate at all to take a new set of these on a 10,000 mile+ adventure and I've never gotten anything remotely like that mileage out of any other tires. And even better, with nearly 9,000 miles on the tires I could rail on them on the twisty roads of N. Georgia and NC where a peg might have scraped a time or two and they were very grippy and predectable when they were near the limit. Also, people often discuss what tires should they choose for the Dempster or Dalton - these tires arrived at the Dempster with nearly 5,000 miles on them and performed well for the 1,100 mile round trip on the Dempster with no problems.

[Bucho]

Wow, you are certainly getting the most out of those tires. Glad it was such a good trip.