I’m in Staunton, VA tonight and will be heading to Lewes, DE on Sunday. I’m taking advantage of some room cancellations made when the hurricane was on its way, and I have a nice suite on the beach for Sunday night and Monday night. Tuesday I’ll be heading for the car ferry and going to NJ.

The odometer currently reads 6024 miles. 

The weather here looked better this morning, being overcast but not seeming to threaten rain, so I decided to take the Atom back to the Dragon for a few more runs. Having left most of my luggage at the motel, I was less concerned with losing items while slinging the Atom around the Dragon’s curves. Here I’ve stopped to make sure everything is tied down before heading south to the Overlook:

The weather at the Dragon was great and I got some great runs in – particularly the earlier pair, before most of the traffic arrived. I managed to beat my previous best speed of [censored] by 11MPH. I’m getting good enough that I’m not being passed by anyone, and managing to catch up with some of the sport bikers in front of me.

I also found out firsthand what happens when the rear end of the Atom breaks loose. I’d been told that “the first you’ll know about it is when the rear end passes you”, but for me it just sort of hopped off the ground and skittered a few inches sideways in 3 bounces in a very controlled manner, and I stayed in my lane and exited the turn gracefully. This was doing 50+ in a hairpin indicating 15, so I’m quite pleased with the performance.

After my first run, I pulled into Ron Johnson’s portable http://www.tailofthedragon.com/ store and hung out and chatted for an hour or so. I then pulled across the street to the Deals Gap Motorcyle Resort to pick up some bottled water, adjust my tire pressures, and chat with the bike crowd:

Ron and a number of the bikers think that it is possible that the Atom can set a new record on the Dragon. Maybe Tom can bring an Atom down from Brammo and make a video of breaking the record?

This guy decided to land on the hood when I parked the car at Look Rock on the Foothills Parkway:

Here’s the Atom next to a pickup truck for a comparison of size:

Looking out to the southwest from Look Rock:

Update: My Atom made the front page at http://www.tailofthedragon.com/. There are a couple minor glitches in the copy, but given that Ron and I were talking without taking notes, I think he got most of the points:

Update 2: The Atom also made Killboy’s blog twice:

I’m in Pigeon Forge today and when I looked out my window this morning, there was a torrential downpour. Looking at the weather (on the computer and on TV), this is the first wave of rain being pushed north by Hurricane Ernesto. I decided to stay here through Sunday (tentatively) to hopefully let the storm move ahead of me and push the rain out of the way. The motel says that most of their guests either checked out and ran, or extended their stays to ride the storm out here. With an open car like the Atom, I’m definitely in the “stay put and stay dry” group.

If I leave Sunday, I can still make my ferry appointment in Delaware on Tuesday afternoon, but that means I’ll be taking the interstates instead of the scenic route.

Stay tuned for updates. I’ll also be filling in the details on the last few days, since I have time to waste now…

Update: Here’s what the weather looks like outside my motel window. It has been like this all day. Hopefully the hurricane will sweep all of this bad weather along with it, leaving me a few decent days.

Wednesday morning in Sweetwater started out nicely (see my previous post on replacing the instrument cluster) and I headed for Tellico Plains and the Tail of the Dragon. This was one of the places I was really looking forward to on this trip. First up, from Sweetwater to Robbinsville, I took the Cherohala Skyway. Here’s a shot from one of the high points in the road, looking out and down at the Skyway at a lower elevation:

And here’s the Atom in the same spot:

Next up was Wheeler’s Motorcycle Repair and Tail of the Dragon gift shop, where I picked up all the swag I could fit in the Atom (which wasn’t a lot – I got 2 T-shirts, a polo shirt, a patch, a 129 road sign replica, and 3 DVDs of Dragon runners):

I also collected info from Dragon runners coming south on conditions on the Dragon. There were reports of several downed trees at blind curves which had only been partially cut away, as well as some wet conditions on the road from the previous night’s rains. 

Then it was on to the Dragon itself. The road and environment remind me a lot of the woods where I grew up, so I was pretty comfortable with the route right away, only lacking familiarity with the actual roadway itself.

This is a road that the Atom really shows its skills on. I managed to do an average speed of [censored] through the Dragon, and the only things that kept me from going faster were concerns for going around a curve and finding slower traffic / a stuck truck / a downed tree. This would be a great road to do faster runs on, as long as it could be closed in one direction and have spotters reporting that the curves ahead are clear. Given the amount of business that Dragon riders bring to the area, maybe they’ll consider this in the future. Though, since it crosses state lines, it may be difficult.

Again, about the Atom on the Dragon – no matter what the Dragon threw at the Atom, the car stayed glued to the road. I didn’t have any tire noise or loss of grip, even when going around 15MPH hairpins at 35MPH. And the car didn’t bottom out – ever.

Killboy was out at his usual spot, so there will probably be pictures of my Atom up on his site (http://killboy.com/) shortly.

At the Overlook I stopped and chatted with some bikers who were heading the other way. All of the following shots are from there:

Lastly, here’s another “art shot” for the folks who keep asking for them. This one is of the “Ariel” logo on the driver’s seat as seen in the side view mirror:

Wednesday is Tail of the Dragon day, assuming the weather is decent. I should have some good picures for you tomorrow.

I have a story to share with you now that it is over with a happy ending. On the way to Sweetwater, the Atom and I got thoroughly soaked (and dried out, and soaked – repeat over and over) and my SPA Microdash managed to get full of water (it wound up looking like one of those “executive desk ornament” wave gizmos). The elements on the bottom of the unit were completely inoperable, and the ones further up were flickering on and off and barely visible behind the condensed water droplets on the faceplate.

I called Brammo at 3:35 PM their time, and they managed to scrounge up a replacement display assembly and send it out to me, along with a tube of silicone goop, replacement cable ties and different screws, all before FedEx’s cutoff time of 4:00 PM at Medford. That means that they got this all together and driven up to the FedEx terminal at the airport within 25 minutes! (I bet they used an Atom to drive it there!)

The next day, Tom from Brammo called me back and asked if FedEx had arrived yet (they hadn’t). He said he’d arrived at the office early in the morning to talk to SPA UK and that SPA said the unit was completely waterproof and what happened was impossible.

When I received the new display and installed it (it worked fine), I called Tom back to find out how he wanted the old one sent back (what speed service, and to Brammo or directly to SPA). He said that SPA UK called him back and it turns out there was a newly-hired employee on the SPA assembly line in the UK, and that “some number” of Microdash units (for everyone, not just Brammo) are missing the sealing O-ring between the front and back halves of the display.

After all was said and done, I was able to get under way on schedule the next day, with no delays whatsoever.

This is outstanding service from Brammo and I can’t say enough good things about them. Occasionally I read on various boards how people are concerned about after-sale support for an Atom they’re thinking of buying, and I can say that you’ll have absolutely no problems. Brammo is a class act through-and-through.

I’ll be leaving Champaign in a bit, heading toward Lexington, KY. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts for the next few days along my route call for rain, thunderstorms, and more rain.

Here’s Amanda looking cool in the Atom:

I’ll post an update when I get somewhere and get dried out…

Another day of just driving. However, I did see something really cool while I was on the road – on I-70, just east of Concordia, MO I saw a B-2 Stealth bomber. It was turning when I first noticed it, so I had a great view of the whole surface. Once it leveled out it was very hard to spot, since it is thin and has no tail to speak of. It flew off to the south, presumably back to Whiteman AFB. No pictures, as I was driving at the time. This is the first one I’ve ever seen in the air.

Nothing much to report – I’m doing my drive from my last stop in Colorado to Champaign/Urbana, IL. I did about 400 miles today, and will do about the same tomorrow, leaving 175 miles or so for Friday.

Today the car and I climbed Mount Evans (to be honest, the car did all the work). Mount Evans is the highest paved road in the US at 14,260 feet at the summit. So my Atom has now been on both the highest and lowest roads in the US.

In front of the ruins of the Crest House:

The sign in this picture is a warning about altitude sickness:

I’ve had some requests for a few more “arty” shots of my Atom. Here’s 3 to keep you satisfied:

This little fellow is a yellow-bellied marmot. They’re all over, and love to mug for the camera.

And a mountain goat, busily ignoring me:

The previous post just covered Independence Pass, one stop along today’s route. I figured I’d write another post with more general info. In Westcliffe this morning, I met up with another Colorado Atom fan who has a car on order, and I took him for a test ride.

I’m in Glenwood Springs now and will be heading to Mount Evans tomorrow. That’s the highest paved road in the continental US, at 14,260 feet (4 feet shy of the summit). After driving that, my Atom will have been on both the lowest (Badwater Basin, Death Valley, -282 feet) and highest roads in the US.

After Mount Evans, I’ll try to swing through Tiny Town, CO (just to get a picture of the sign) and stay the night somewhere near Denver. After that, it is a series of 300+ mile days to get to Illinois for the weekend.

Tonight I changed my trip plate (the first one actually expires tomorrow, but I swapped it a day early as the weather was good and I had lots of free time) and washed the car at one of those self-serve places with a pressure hose with various forms of goop. After filling the floorpan with water, I took it to the vacuum and emptied it with the vac.