Some friends of mine were in the Deals Gap area for the whole week of April 28th - May 5th, so I headed down there for a couple of days to meet up with them.

 Day 1 (Thursday May 3rd)

I finally got the ST1300 loaded and headed out around 9:30am.

I ran into a little mist along the way, but never hit any heavy rain.  I arrived at the Crossroads of Time (where Hwy 129 and Hwy 28 meet) at around 4pm.  This is where the Deals Gap “Resort”, restaurant, and store are located.  Across the street, TailOfTheDragon.com also has a storefront; I picked up a t-shirt for my wife and a keychain for my luggage and helmet lock keys. I couldn’t get a cell phone connection, and I didn’t see anyone around I knew, so after resting for a while and checking out the store, I decided to head into Robbinsville to check into the hotel.  

If you’re on a bike, and are staying in Robbinsville, THE place to stay is the Two Wheel Inn.  Every room has it’s own private garage.  I got a room with two twin beds, but they also have Kings available.

I still couldn’t reach anyone on the phone, so after unpacking I went by Subway to grab a sandwich, went back to the room and wolfed it down, and rested up for the following day’s ride.

Day 2 (Friday May 4th)

I woke up early for some reason, so I watched some TV and caught up on some on-line stuff (the Two Wheel Inn also has free Wi-Fi), then got a quick shower and packed everything up.  I finally got in touch with my friends at around 9:30am and we planned to meet at the Crossroads Of Time at 10:30am.  I got there early, so I had some French Toast with Bacon at their restaurant.  It wasn’t bad, but the French Toast was a bit undercooked.

Everyone showed up soon thereafter, so we discussed the plan for the day.  The Mini Cooper event had just started, and The Dragon was crawling with 400-500 Mini Coopers, so we decided to ride the Cherohala Skyway instead. 

We went all the way across into Tellico Plains, TN and grabbed some Beach Burgers at the Tellico Plains Drive-In restaurant.   After gassing up, we headed back across the Skyway and ran into some rain near the top.  We stopped and put our rain gear on, but the rain was pretty much over by the time we got back on the road, so when we got back to the NC end of the Skyway we pulled everything off and headed back to the Crossroads of Time.  On the way there we hit a HEAVY DOWNPOUR and got soaked.  Figures.

By then it was near 5pm so I had to get back on the road home. 

 The ride home was cold, but uneventful for the most part, other than some heavy fog on Hwy 19 and I-40 going through the mountains. I pulled into the garage at around 11pm with exactly 888.8 miles on the trip meter.  Freaky.

I’ve tried various communicators in the past, such as the Chatterbox and the Collett, but now after using an Autocom, I could never go back to using those.  This is a top notch system. 

I went with Autocom’s top-of-the-line Super Pro AVi Duo system so that I wouldn’t have to worry about upgrading later.  It comes with everything you need to communicate with a passenger, cables for a cell phone, music player, and GPS, and has tons of features. 

After shopping around, I found the best price at Kahuna Cycles; and even though they are in Canada I received the system VERY quickly; within a few days of ordering.

Very quick and easy installation. Here’s the unit itself, sitting on padding and strapped in the tail of the bike.  When we use the iPod, it plugs into its input and is placed behind the unit where the passenger’s headset lead is shown coiled.  We control it with an iJet wireless controller.

Here’s the ground wire running to the battery’s negative terminal, and the power wire running to the tail light for switched “clean” power.

When not in use, the passenger and rider headset leads are coiled up and stored under their respective seats.

When in use, the leads come out in convenient locations.

This Autocom model comes with a noise sensor that goes inside your helmet to automatically adjust the VOX level based on the amount of ambient noise. Very cool, and works perfectly. Here’s where it goes.

Microphone and Speaker

I used one of the included clips on my helmet (not really what it is designed for) so that I could keep the lead from dangling when I’m not using the Autocom.

Mounted and wired in my PPC-6700 Smartphone also.  Works great, and people I talk to say they didn’t even know I was on the bike.

Continuing my tradition with Bagster, my tank cover and Medea tank bag arrived today.  The Medea is much improved over past Bagster bags that I’ve had; lots of storage compartments now instead of just a large open area.

And, as usual, I immediately installed a Powerlet PowerMate Tank Bag Kit to supply power to the interior of tank bag. (to charge cell phones, iPod, etc.)

Here’s the Powerlet connection I previously installed on my steering stem, supplying power to the tank bag and the GPS.

My boots were already starting to mar up the frame around the footpegs, so I ordered a set of frame protectors from Bike-Quip, and they arrived today.  They seem very durable and were very easy to install. Great product, and great customer service!

The Givi topcase on the ST1300 was shortlived.  The Hondaline topcase matches the bike and the side cases; the Givi looked out of place. 

I ordered it from CruiserBackrest.com on Wednesday, and it was at my door Monday. Quality and fit/finish is great, just as is expected from Honda.  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest…