The Southern Dozen - 12 Great Rides

 

 I stumbled across the "Southern Dozen" motorcycle rides while in Johnson City, Tn on business. As I opened the flier I found a really simple, well put together, group of maps showing day rides based out of Johnson City.  The flier has "Johnson City Convention and Visitors Bureau" on the back, so I'm assuming that's who puts it out. I also suspect that the creation of this booklet has some help by some serious motorcyclist. Johnson City has recently been host to the BMW National Event, and the Motorcyclist Sport Touring Association's annual ride. There are lots of great day trips out of Johnson City, and if I compared my maps that I saved from the two previous mentioned events with this flier I bet many of the routes are the similar.

The flier that I picked up was very well done. It shows the 12 mentioned rides, and has easy to read maps and directions. All of the rides start in Johnson City and range from 30 to 151 miles. Some of the rides include, the rapidly becoming famous "Snake" through Shady Valley, a ride up Roan Mountain, and a ride to the Natural Tunnel, a rock formation just north of Kingsport Tn. The flier also includes a list of Johnson City hotels that offer discounted rates for motorcyclist.
 Personally, I think this is super cool! How often is it that a city realizes the value of promoting motorcycling tourism. I picked up my flier out of one of those racks of fliers that advertises everything from wax museums to area chitlin restaurants, that was at the Holiday Inn Express in Johnson City. You can also go to their website, www.southerndozen.com