The Blue Ridge 500 TT

Jim Roche, The Blue Ridge 500 TT, 2004, graphite and color pencil on paper, 23 x 29.5 inches.

Museum: So is this also a bicycle race?

JR: Oh, man! We’ve been talking about motorcycles here, but we have it easy! We have it safe! In the afternoons when we go down there, about five in the afternoon, after what little traffic there is coming home, there are only a few people coming home, the bicyclists show up. Some of them speak English and some don’t because they are from all over the world. They paint their clothes on. Their protection —they don’t even have any. They paint these things on that look like clothes, almost, that’s how thin they are. They don’t practice their up-hills. They only practice their down-hills with the cars. . . . Here I am in full leather. I’ve got Metzler tires on my BMW that are as soft as chewing gum. You can’t make them slide. I’m talking about the newest equipment. So when you see a guy, here he comes on a little tiny tire, the diameter of which is about the size of a nickel and he’s running forty-five through a corner that I can barely run forty-five through, it’s terrifying. The bicyclists love these maps as much as the motorcyclists.

JR: And coasting through [those church zones]. . . Well, definitely because that’s where you really can get in trouble in the church zones up there. They take it serious, but, you know, they don’t mind us. That Blue Ridge 500 mile T.T. right there is a beaut! Now this is one . . . I ran the Blue Ridge 500. 1903 I have done multiple loops of this and later I would purchase a place up there. This was before I did that, but this is Motorcycle Central for the East Coast. This is where they run the Tour of Georgia. They run the same roads we do.

So there is Route 60 where Thunder Road was filmed, here is Suches. That is Morganton. And Suches is right down there. Actually, kind of at that intersection. I didn’t put the town in. This is State Road 180 over Wolfpen Gap. Blood Mountain. Of course, the Richard B. Russell Highway, Scenic Highway. These are classic roads: Wayah Bald Road, Ellijay Road. All of these are known motorcycle roads, as I said, the number one motorcycle loop. Later, I would expand this map, much more detailed, much finer drawings. If we go in though, each time there is a road change, you have a slash mark for an intersection. Later, I would color those in and I sometimes would highlight areas.