by Gary Inman

Day 19: Cruso, NC to Waynesboro, VA
Day 20: Waynesboro, VA to Harrisburg, PA
Day 21: Harrisburg, PA to Newark, NJ

I’m parked in a lay-by on Skyline Drive, a scenic toll-road that runs for 110 miles through the Appalachian Mountains. We, myself and tour leader Nick Sanders, have been stopped by a Park Ranger who is armed and visibly angry.

‘Do you know what the speed limit is on this road?’
’35 miles per hour,’ says Nick.
‘That’s right. And do you know how fast you were going?’ wonders the Ranger.
‘40?’ says Nick, hopefully.
‘68!’ shouts the lawman. ‘Now I’ve had a lot of bikes speeding through here today, but you are by far the fastest. I could have these bikes towed away and crushed and have you put in jail for that speed.’

We stare at our shoes. The ranger walks back to his car. Then returns. He tells us that he’s not going to give us a ticket. This is some kind of miracle. I might be because my bike has an English registration plate on it. Perhaps he can’t be bothered with the paperwork or he likes the look of us. I don’t know what it is, but we know it’s our lucky day. Nick and I both pull on our helmets, trying as hard as we can not to smile and rejoin the beautiful Skyline Drive. We have one mile of the park to go. It’s the only mile we ride at 35mph.

The trip is nearly over. Yesterday was another damp slog, while tomorrow is an early start and a 140-mile hop from Pennsylvania, past New York to the dock at Newark, New Jersey. We’ll park up the bikes and stand around for three hours waiting to load them in a container for their return to the UK, then get an expensive taxi to the airport.

This trip has been unforgettable. I’ve covered 13,000km (over 8000 miles), and ridden through 24 of the lower 48 states. With 12 other riders from England, Wales and Ireland, I’ve ridden from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back to the Atlantic.

And I already want to do it again…

Gary is rode from New York to California and back to New York with www.nicksanders.com

by Gary Inman

Day 18: Jackson, TN to Cruso, NC

While this trip has been, and continues to be, an incredible experience it’s now the longest I’ve been away from my wife and kids and it feels like the best roads and sites are behind us. Packing the bike up at 6.15am knowing there’s a day of rain ahead is not much fun. Today I leave ahead of everyone else, because I’m making another detour, this time to visit a record shop in Nashville.

It’s more Interstate and the spray coming off lorries is blinding. By the time I reach Nashville, at 10am, I’ve already seen the aftermath of three bad accidents: a car on its roof, another smashed into the central reservation.

The shop I want to visit isn’t any old record shop, it’s Third Man Records and belongs to Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, and now performing solo. It’s a tiny store, that only sells his record label’s own records, but it’s still a special place and well worth the detour. I leve with four 7-inch singles.

I rejoin the Interstate and not long after Keith, an Englishman policeman who is on the trip, appears next to me on his huge BMW Adventure. For a policeman he rides like a lunatic. I tuck in behind him as we hurl along the highway. We’re overtaking everything, abusing the speed limit, taking risks. We’re doing it for two reasons. Being the quickest thing on the road puts you in charge. Dawdle along and the articulated trucks, that do 80mph and don’t slow down for anything, are overtaking you, obscuring you in a cloud of soaking spray and pulling in when they want. We want to be in charge.

The other reason we’re riding this fast is to get this hellish day over as soon as possible.

The rain stops for the last 50 miles of the day. We arrive at the Blue Ridge Motorcycle Campground, North Carolina. We were supposed to be camping, but the organisers of the trip cancelled it and booked the cabins for us to stay in instead. After a hot shower, the rain catches up and is so heavy it floods the campsite. I could kiss my Dainese boots (ST Tour Torq Goretex). They’re the only pair of boots, out of the 14 pairs that braved the weather today, that didn’t leak.

At 7pm, the onsite canteen cooks up freshly caught trout and homemade apple pie. It’s an incredible meal in a great setting. Just when I thought the trip was on a downer, I’m back on a high. I run back to the cabin, crawl into bed and fall asleep listening to the rain hammer on the roof of the cabin. I can’t even imagine being in a tent tonight.

Gary is riding from New York to California and back to New York with www.nicksanders.com