Big "Mayhem" Run - The Tennessee Invasion

For three straight years Chris Callen and all the folks involved with Cycle Source Magazine have put on one hell of a shindig. What makes us like the Big Mountain Run better than any other event is simply that you do whatever the hell you want to do. The campsite is in a remote corner of Tennessee right next to the Hiwassee River so getting there is a long road into the hills along with it being nestled between the river and the railroad tracks also means that noise is never an issue. You can assume that everyone takes full advantage of this with burnouts, firecrackers, live music and various other things that go boom, making for the best damn biker party of the year.

We started out planning on meeting around noon this past thursday and motoring on over the 411 miles to the campsite, well that didn't quite work out. About 35 miles into the ride Brooklyn Joe's primary decided to explode and there we were stuck on the side of the road. A bolt had backed out into the primary chain and ripped it all into shreds and also cracking off a huge chunk of his primary cover, so Joe's bike was shot from the start. Not to let this deter us, we tore off and got the brand new Rusty Knuckles company van and picked up the bike, swapped him out with our cafe racer and now had a bike for Joe up in the hills to roll around on along with a supply wagon.

Finally rollin' into the campsite by about 3am and cold as all hell, we quickly found out that a lot of folks showed up this year for the festivities. With bikes strewn about everywhere, fire pits still blazing it was a welcome site to be back up in the hills. Over the next few days we turned Sal's bike into a yarder to haul trees and firewood, heard about a naked dude fighting another guy who invaded his tent, sampled fresh batches of tasty moonshine, blazed bikes through river streams, rode motorcycles on a halfpipe, witness guys lining up to be dragged behind bikes on stone and dirt, bought shitloads of fireworks from an old lady that loves things that go boom and still thinks its the 1920's, partied down with all the fellas in Led Sled, Justified Defiance, the Haints and many more while also riding a thousand miles with a shit eating grin thinkin' on how much more mayhem we can get into at next years Big "Mayhem" Run. Thanks to all who put on the Big Mountain Run, see ya next year and yes this time we are burning everything down with more fireworks and bigger explosions. Next year we are fishing the creek with ordinance. Will also be posting video here soon once we go through it all.

Cycle Source Big Mountain Run