Lee Hart's Web Site

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I loaded up and hit the road, headed towards Lynchburg. Looking at the map US route 231 goes from Bowling Green to a Shelbyville (not too far from Lynchburg) where I took TN 82 to Lynchburg.

The ride here was OK. It'll be nice to get out of the break-in period. I was encouraged to not maintain the same speed (no cruise control) or exceed 3800 RPM for the first 500 miles or so. That's not been too bad; I'm on rural roads in hilly country so the speed and engine output are varying. I also regularly shifted among 3 gears to further vary the RPM range. (The engine has a lot of torque and doesn't have problems idling at < 1500 RPM at highway speeds; however I believe the RPM range should be kept higher during break-in.) I did get my fair share of jerks on the road. One person went 5-10 miles per hour under the limit in front of me and then seriously cut me off when I started to go around him. A few others were similarly obnoxious. Most were as polite as you'd expect in the south.

If you've ever read the Jack Daniel's label there are several things to note:

o Lem Motlow has been dead for years
o Lynchburg is far more than 361 people.

Indeed, the Jack Daniel's distillery employs ~410 people in town. According to the 1999 Rand McNally road atlas, there are 4,721 people in Lynchburg. It's still a small town, but it's certainly resembles a town that Jack built. What I mean is that in the town square, every place I saw that sold anything sold something with some tie to Jack Daniel's. They seemed to be well set up to separate tourists from their money. Not really a big deal; after all my home town of Chestertown, MD also counts tourism as its primary industry. The towns are similar sizes as well (according to the same source Chestertown has 4,005 people). Chestertown is less of a one-industry town than Lynchburg though.

Also, while Lynchburg's county has been officially dry since 1909, since 1995 Jack Daniel's has been able to sell bottles marked differently than what they sell outside in the White Rabbit, the name of the bar that Jack Daniel used to run. You still can't legally drink in the county but you can buy there. At $38/bottle it's not cheap though. One storekeeper told me that people that want to drink just put it in a cup and there'll probably be no hassles. Also Jack Daniel's used to brew beer; that stopped in late '97. I'd never seen any in the Seattle area but I did buy a case in downtown Lynchburg. So much for being officially dry. The tour is interesting and I recommend it. Some interesting things I learned on the tour:

o The first Friday of every month every Jack Daniel's employee gets one free bottle. The tour guide said this is referred to as "good Friday."
o Most, if not all, employees can serve as tasters, to verify that the bourbon smells and/or tastes proper. If it doesn't then the charcoal is replaced and the bourbon re-filtered. On average a given load of charcoal lasts about 3 months.
o Jack Daniel's has 1000+ acres where 48 (currently) buildings hold the bourbon as it ages. Each building has ~1,000,000 gallons of bourbon. (and this is the high-proof stuff, not what you buy).
o The sour mash process doesn't use any heat to break down the starch.

It also appeared that during fermentation the mash isn't stirred. We were allow to taste the sour mash; not bad. We were also allowed to smell the bourbon as it entered the top of the ~10 feet of crushed hard maple charcoal used to filter the bourbon. At ~140 proof it smells nice, except it has a fairly sharp edge. The filtering & aging do smooth it out a bit.

I'm getting more used to the car. When I first started driving the car I put my seat & steering wheel fairly far forward and the seat all the way down. I quickly learned that I need to raise the seat all the way up if I want to see to the right and behind me with a head check (the mirrors work fine, it's just that riding a motorcycle has conditioned me to always do a head check before changing lanes). Later today I adjusted the seat & wheel further back, as far back as I feel comfortable with the pedals (too far at first; the brake was fine but the clutch was not and I stalled at the next light). This gave me a better view in some of the mirrors and a better view for the heads-up display (less likely that I'll move my head out of the range to see the HUD.)

After the tour at Jack Daniel's I checked into the Lynchburg Bed & Breakfast. It's a Continental breakfast (coffee, orange juice, various sweet breads & muffins), not bad at all. It is a nice place though and I would come back again.

I wasn't planning on riding at night but looking at the map and how far I covered today I believe I may push that a bit. I still want to avoid interstates though. Also once I get out west where the towns are further apart I should have less issues.

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