Due to the usual demands of raising a family of three young kids with a wife that is in nursing school, I haven't been able to do much more riding than just my daily commute back and forth to work.  So when the opportunity presented itself to take a couple of days and go ride, I jumped at the chance.  I snagged a couple of riding buddies to go with me and quickly threw together a route to go explore central Tennessee.

Usually, eastern TN gets all the riding glory, what with the Smoky mountains and all.  But with only two days of riding, I'd have to turn around as soon as I got into the Smokies.  So we decided on seeing what the area betwen Nashville and  Knoxville had to offer, specifically the area between Lebanon and Cookeville, north of I-40.  We were not disappointed. 

Thanks to the help of a couple of locals, a great route out to Cookeville was established.

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<small>View <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/ms?msid=215086340038602140018.0004fb90dc9d04bf00296&msa=0&ie=UTF8&ll=34.932295,-86.913058&spn=2.498451,2.822821&t=m&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Exploring Central Tennessee[/url] in a larger map</small>

We left early in the morning since most of my trips end up taking way longer than anticipated; usually requiring riding late at night and and enduring some form of miserable weather (cold, rain, etc.).  However, this trip was a pleasant surprise.  We arrived at the Alpine Lodge (3 queen beds for $80!) at 2 pm.  Still fresh enough to go out and ride, we decided to go ride the loop we had plotted out.


After 130 miles of near non stop twistes, we arrived back in Cookeville ready for some food and sleep.  I must say, the roads in that area of TN are really fantastic with great scenery, excellent road conditions and minimal traffic. I will be back to explore more of the area at some point.

We left  the next morning and intended to mostly just reverse our route to get home.  However, shortly after stopping for lunch in Shelbyville, one of the bikes developed a flat on the front tire.  We could not find a puncture and after trying to air up the tire with my pump, determined that it was a failed valve stem.  A local farmer said we could stash the bike at his house until we could come back and get it.  So the luggage from the ZRX and the BMW were put on my bike and Chuck got to ride on the back of the ZRX for another 160miles.  This was the only picture taken on the trip. 

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From here we high tailed it to the interstate and took the shortest, most boring route to get home.  The ZRX also developed a small issue in that the overflow tube inside the tank failed and was allowing fuel to constantly dribble out of the rubber overlfow/vent hose attached to the underside of the tank.  We spent about 30 minutes at a gas station diagnosing and 'man-gineering' a solution.  Back on the road, we arrived home at around 6pm safe and sound. 

Mileage: 870 over two days.
Speed traps: 1 but saved by a kind motorist
Deer sightings: 6. with one VERY close call.

You went through Shelbyville. I lived there for about 9 months. Beautiful area, I miss it sometimes.

That's awesome. We had a fair amount of rain in the 'Boro Saturday morning.