The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
From views to brews
Southern Dozen packs compelling twists and turns to see fall colors on two wheels or four
East Tennessee boasts a 12-pack of twisty routes favored by motorcyclists and sports car enthusiasts alike.
These Southern Dozen, mapped by the Johnson City Convention & Visitors Bureau for a motorcycle rally, range from 37 to 157 miles, mostly over Appalachian country roads.
Four of us — two couples — spent three days on a pair of touring motorcycles exploring as many of as we could ride. That wasn’t nearly enough time. We could have ridden all 1,132 miles in three days, but we would have skipped waterfalls, panoramic views, a rich micro-beverage culture, bluegrass music and good ole Southern comfort food. Next time, we’ll plan a full week in Johnson City, the alpha and omega of Southern Dozen routes.
And we’ll pack our bathing suits. The Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City, where we stayed, boasts a heated saltwater pool. It’s a lowimpact place to stretch muscles that freeze into a saddle straddle.
It’s possible to rent a motorcycle in Johnson City, but we chose to ride 500plus miles from home in Northeast Ohio. It’s also a popular destination for car clubs, such as the Miata group we saw.
We hit the road at 5:30 a.m., taking routes through Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia before entering the northeast corner of Tennessee. With generous breaks and meals, the ride took about 10 hours. MapQuest suggests the trip can be done in eight.
We lodged at the Carnegie Hotel, a four-star property on the corner of the East Tennessee State University campus. Parking was generous, and we were grateful for the free garage behind the hotel, where our bikes were sheltered from rain.
Though the external architecture is relatively new, vintage elegance begins at the revolving door and flows through with antiques, stained-glass medallions, Tiffany-style lamps and sleigh beds. On a Friday or Saturday, it’s common to ride the elevator with lively bachelorette/bachelor party or wedding
reception guests.
After freshening up, we stretched our legs for a mile walk to a pie-and-beer tasting at JRH Brewing. It sounds odd, but matching chocolate cream pie with nitro stout is sublime. Interesting tastings are regular happenings at JRH, as are food trucks.
Back at The Carnegie, we finished with a nightcap at the bar, which offers more than 250 whiskey selections. About 100 of those are bourbons, ranging from $6 to $130 per shot.
Johnson City is not affluent, and that makes real estate attainable. Young people easily can afford homes or start storefront businesses. And low cost of living means lower prices at restaurants, craft breweries, boutiques and more. Visitors benefit from low prices and enthusiastic entrepreneurs.
Our first breakfast was at The Main Street Pizza Company. The name is a misnomer — locals know the menu goes far beyond gourmet pizza to include many offerings from the proprietor’s farm. While waiting for variations on eggs to arrive, we used phones to access the Southern Dozen website. Clicking on the route Mountain Ribbons, we were redirected to MapQuest to guide us through the 157mile route. There we each downloaded the route to mobile devices because GPS can be unreliable in the mountains. Previous experience taught us to also carry maps as backup.
Mountain Ribbons goes south into North Carolina and overlaps the Blue Ridge Parkway. We liked it so much that we stayed on the parkway a little longer than planned. There we took panoramic shots of scenic overlooks, Linville Falls and the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park.
Linville Falls has two viewing spots, both requiring a nearly a 1.5-mile hike from the parking lot. The hike and view are worth the stop. Meanwhile, Cone’s 20-room, 13,000-squarefoot 1901 mansion houses the Parkway Craft Center, with handmade crafts by hundreds of regional artists. Cone was a wealthy textile entrepreneur, conservationist and philanthropist of the Gilded Age.
Our long weekend was
full of curves. We rolled our shoulders from side to side as the bike danced through waves of s-curves. With hiking and sightseeing, a ride that may have been three to four hours became a full day. That’s when we realized the Southern Dozen might narrow to a half dozen or fewer. The two remaining days blurred with journeys more important than destination.
Perhaps the most interesting route was the 107mile Top of the Roan. After 15 switchbacks, I quit counting, and the flip-flops went on for another 20 minutes, all downhill. The state must have a significant budget for road signs warning of undulations.
Ignoring the clock, we’d stop where the map suggested — for stunning views from Roan Mountain — and where it didn’t — dusty country stores that smelled like fertilizer and carried everything from feed to food.
We tracked the 88-mile Music to Your Ears route north to Virginia and twisted over flat roads to The Carter Family Fold, a performance center dedicated to the first family of country music. The time-worn, grey clapboard buildings still vibrate with music on Saturday nights. That same trail passes through the city of Bristol — in Virginia and Tennessee — making it nearly mandatory to visit the Birthplace of Country Music Museum for an interactive tour through the history of bluegrass and country music.
It was only right, after Music to Your Ears, to visit The Down Home, a small, historic honky-tonk in Johnson City. From outside, The Down Home appears closed, but inside the rough-oak paneled room is very much alive.
We were delighted by the enthusiastic bluegrass sounds of Nashville-based foursome Barefoot Movement.
The 37-mile East Tennessee route took us through Elizabethton for antique shopping and Jonesborough, the oldest city in the state, with interesting buildings and more boutiques. Without the men and our mission, the women would have spent more time shopping the boutiques.
At least once, map-reading skills failed us, and we used GPS to find a freeway to The Carnegie. Considering we were road-weary at times, that wasn’t a bad thing.
We’ll have to return another time to trace and sightsee along The Snake, Vinegar Pie and other routes we didn’t drive.