They came like thundering hordes over the mountains from Iowa, New York, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, New England, Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and even New Jersey. The majority of them rode hard tail choppers. They were dressed in black, wearing grim expressions. The local populace stood back in horror as they watched the picturesque Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, taken over.

Well not really, but they had ridden a long way to party with others of their kind. The Smokey Mountain Smoke Out is not your average motorcycle event. It's a down-to-earth, hard assed good time. It attracts an unpretentious crowd, riding a variety of hand built, totally unique scoots.

No billet barges here. No fancy $10,000 paint jobs. No miles of gleaming chrome. But there was no shortage of clean, sharp rides either. Bikes in the show stretched from one end of the spectrum to the other. It was almost impossible to pick a winner.

What you will find is plenty of black primer. I saw countless uses of the stuff. If there is a way to be creative with black primer, I saw it there. Then there was the imaginative use of objects one doesn't see at the usual bike shows.

It was as if someone said, "Hey, let's see if we can find a way to use this faucet handle on the bike." These are interesting bikes, but they built to be ridden and ridden hard. Which is the main theme of this event.

Hammer, editor of The Horse, says he wanted this to be an event that people ride their bikes to. There's even an arrangement up with the local Mailboxes Etc. So that attendees can ship their camping gear or other needed items ahead of time. They can ride their bikes and pick up their gear once they arrive. From the looks of things, it didn't appear that many folks did trailer duty. Hammer rode his evil black primer hardtail down from Michigan.

About 700 bikes showed up for the event.