Last Day

Eight days of riding in nine days, and 2,103 miles.  I can say I've had enough riding.......not too much, but enough.

This is my eight days bug collection:

Today I rode the "Devil's Triangle".  This is actually the fourth time on it for me, and Carolyn was on the back for one of those rides eight years ago.  It's not as spectacular as the Dragon, but it's really good and doesn't get as much crazy traffic.  Still, this being a weekend day, there were some bikes.....even a bunch of quads and side-by-sides.  It must be legal, somehow.  The ride is also close to where Carolyn's sisters live, so easy to get to.  I took one picture of a typical curve, and this is not the tightest by any means:

I didn't post any of the pictures from my visit to the AMA hall of fame museum, so I'll end this trip blog with some of those.

I got to the museum shortly after it opened and I was the only one who rode there.

There were bikes and riding gear from all the famous American road racers, motocrossers, flat track racers and off road racers.  Most of them were from my 55+ years of riding and were familiar to me.

This was the first modern 4-stroke motocross bike that started the revolution to modern 4-strokes.
It was an obvious one-off factory special.

This is one of Evel Knievel's bikes and shows some of the many body repairs he had.  I wonder who paid for all the surgery.

Bill Baird was the national champion enduro racer when I started riding enduros.  He was pretty much unbeatable, but only rode eastern enduros, not desert events like I rode.

The guy who rode this bike was incredible.  Read the story below.

I had one of these bikes, only it was black.  They are using it here to provide a simulation of riding.  Carolyn and I rode double on it from Fargo ND over to and around Lake Superior, camping out almost every night.  I crashed that bike on a ride down in Baja, and then later got sideswiped by a pickup truck and got a broken collar bone.  I figured it was an unlucky bike and gave it away.

Jeff Fredette rode this bike in several ISDE's and I had one like it......a Kawasaki KDX, my last real dirt bike.

That outfit that took the crash pictures that I had in my previous post took some photos of me (not crashing), and here are a couple:

Here is another photo taken by a different outfit where I have a little more lean going on:

I Do The Dragon Again!

Carolyn wanted to visit her sisters on this trip, and the benefit to me was that they live relatively close to the most famous motorcycle road in the country, the "Tail of the Dragon".  So while she was visiting, I went for a day ride and in addition to the Dragon, I rode the Cherohola Skyway, another destination motorcycle road.

This ride felt like an Orvie memorial ride.  I've done the ride three times now, and the last one was with Big Mike and Orv.  This was three years ago when Carolyn and I were on our "Grand Tour" of the US.  Mike and Orv flew in to local airports and we all rented motorcycles in Atlanta.  It's covered in this post http://thegoodroads.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2017-01-11T17:39:00-08:00&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false.  I think it was shortly after this ride that Orv got the diagnosis of lung cancer, so he was really glad that he got to go on this ride.  We each had a helmet intercom, and I remember lots of excited chatter about these two roads while we were riding.

I chose to do this ride on Friday because I thought there would be fewer motorcycles riding the Dragon, but there turned out to be a lot more than when we three last rode it.  The main motorcycle resort is at Deal's Gap.  Orv and Mike and I actually stayed at this resort.  They have some pretty basic accommodations:

 and this is what the parking lot looked like at 10 am on a weekday:

It really is a fantastic road....just the kind of second, third and fourth gear turns that I like and really smooth pavement (except for the gouges made my the cruiser bike footpegs).  However, my gps continues to bedevil me at times and once on the way back to the air b&b it ran me completely around in a circle, including this "road":

One of the features of the resort is the "tree of shame".....a tree decorated with parts from crashed motorcycles.  Last time Orv and I posed in front of it:

And this time I took pictures all around:

There is an outfit that takes photos at various spots on the ride, and you can buy a shot of yourself after they post them on their website in a day or two.  This also gives them the opportunity to catch people in the act of crashing, and they have posted some of these:

They have some cute Dragon-themed sculptures around too:

And I got me a souvenir:

For those of you reading this blog who don't give a twit about motorcycles, here are the scenery pics:

In Ohio

I have an avatar that I sometimes use on motorcycle websites that I belong to that shows the states I have ridden in.  I have added West Virginia and Ohio to this map:

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I would love to bag those New England states, but that may be a bit of a stretch. 

Today Carolyn followed me and we did a couple of roads listed in the website in yesterdays post.  The first was West Virginia highway 16, and it was a nice road, but not spectacular.....mostly scenic with lots of gentle curves.  On this segment I needed to stop for gas at a little burg in the boonies.  You know you are in the heart of the sticks when there is this sign in the restroom:

One of the benefits of having Carolyn following is that we can have a picnic lunch together.  We found a state park with a picnic area just a few miles off our route:

The second of the recommended roads was Ohio's state route 555, called the "triple nickel".  It was towards the end of the day and it kicked my ass.  It was getting hot, I was getting tired, and the roads was a real challenge.  It was like a roller coaster with lots of blind hill crests and tight curves.  Not being able to see over the crests caused a bit of tension in not knowing which way the road went on the other side.  But I was still having a great time.   Then we came upon this:

I guess he was Amish, or something, but if he had been on the other side of a blind crest I would have had a hard time stopping in time.  After that I was even more careful about bombing over the hills, but we didn't see any more horsey traffic. 

It's kind of dangerous to generalize about the difference in drivers from one part of the country or another, but unlike in Oregon, California and Washington, I have yet to have a driver pull over to let me pass.  They may be going 20 mph below the speed limit, but if you are following, it's your problem.  Needless to say I do a bit of double yellow passing. 

Tomorrow Carolyn and I separate.  I will stop by the AMA museum in Pickerington Ohio and she will visit relatives near Columbus.  We will be staying in different motels, so I will not have access to my computer to update the blog.  Then Wednesday we will meet up at my nephew's house in Greenville. 

Loop out of Summersville

Today I did a 244 mile loop out and back to the motel.  I planned several of the routes on this trip using this website: http://www.motorcycleroads.com/best/?c=124.  This particular loop uses routes numbered 9 and 15.  Tomorrow I will use some of number 10, and we have already done route 3. 

It was supposed to be another hot day, but I still took along my long sleeve riding shirt that I wear under my jacket in cooler weather.  It's a good thing I did because the first half of the loop went through the Monongahela National Forest and I got up to almost 5,000 feet altitude.  It was downright chilly.  The road wasn't particularly curvy, but the scenery was great.  Here is a pic of the typical road appearance: 

After I got up to the top there were some scenic overlooks:

It was even turning a little autumn-like:

Later, when I was back down at around 2,000 feet it began to warm up but was still pleasant.  I came upon this interesting old house:

When I walked around the back to "take a break" I came upon this:

This is a 80's era Honda CX500.  There is an old friend of mine who reads this blog and he and I did many great rides together while he was riding one of these.  Good times, those.

The loop was basically 100 miles north through the scenic part and then 100 mile back through the curvy part.  And the curvy part was great.  I went many miles without coming on a car headed in my direction, so I could get the best out of the curves. 

I got back around 3 pm and found that Carolyn had not visited the Civil War battlefield, so we did that.  The museum was closed for the season, but this sign explains it:

We found a trail and took an opportunity to get in our 6,000 steps for the day on a 2 mile walk:

The trail also had some scenic overlooks:

We walked through hardwood forest and I was drooling over the white oak that I would love to be able to use in my woodworking.

There were also some woods rats in the park.  These are a white-tailed variety that are different from ours in Washington.  Glad to see him in the park and not on the road.  I saw some statistics that showed West Virginia was the worst state for deer strikes, but I haven't seen any on the road yet. 

Tomorrow we head north to Ohio and will ride another on of the recommended roads on the way there. 

Gonna need new boots

Hundreds of miles of twisty roads on a low-powered 500cc motorcycle means lots of shifting.  I'm wearing out the toe on my left boot.  But I'm having a hell of a good time.  Today was another 300 miler, with at least 200 of those miles on great two-lane twisties.  Carolyn followed me when she could, but when it got real tight or there were cars to pass the car was at a disadvantage.

We went through the heart of Appalachia and the coal mining area of West Virginia.  Things are not looking too good there........lots of abandoned mines and equipment along with houses and businesses.  I searched for a place for us to get lunch from 11:45 until 1:30 and could not find a restaurant, even though we passed through numerous small towns.  But the countryside is pretty and the roads are to die for. What does seem to be thriving is the off-road recreation vehicle use.  We saw tons of UTV side-by-sides and quads and even some off road motorcycles on the roads and in the towns.  I talked to one guy who said he comes down from Ohio to ride the trails and they are marked for difficulty in three levels.

The days haven't been without some difficulties.  The weather is unseasonably warm with highs in the upper 80's.  I brought my vented mesh jacket, but left the pants at home, so I am wearing jeans.  At least it isn't raining, which would be worse and rain was predicted for several of the days, but now is not in the forecast.  My Garmin gps continues to send me off into the hinterlands periodically, buy I always manage to find my way eventually, and it is a great help in riding a pre-planned route.

Mark and Jon both reported getting home safe and Jon got the rental bike returned in time.  It was great having them along for the day and the evening of conversation, even if it was a little too heavy on motorcycles for Carolyn's taste.

Tomorrow Carolyn takes a day to rest and catch up with some computer chores and maybe visit a local Civil War site and park.

I've got riding partners!

When we got to my nephew Mark's house in Greenville KY to unload the bike I found out that he and his son Jon planned to ride with me on the first day.  I had invited them along, but when I didn't hear from them after I sent my route I figured they didn't want to do it.  Not so.  In fact, Jon even rented a bike for the ride.  Here is a pic of Mark and I getting ready to ride over to Jon's house in Bowling Green:

When we got to Jon's house we discovered he had rented an Indian Scout.  Quite a mix of bikes for this ride.

It was a long day......370 miles and almost 12 hours, but the roads were good and the countryside was pretty.  Then, about 20 miles from the motel we hit the really good stuff and it made the whole trip worthwhile just for that one section.  This shot of my GPS gives you and idea of what I mean:

We arrived at the motel pretty tired and I was ready for my post-ride beer:

We had a late dinner and lots to talk about, so the blog is going to be sort of abbreviated today.  I did take this picture of the "plant that ate the South"; Kudzu.  It's an invasive plant that is almost impossible to kill and it taking over large areas.

I can also show a picture of the result of a little problem I created myself when I left the bolts holding the spare tire extended into the rail where the front tire stops.  I did this in an attempt to keep the tire from cocking sideways, but the bolts ended up chewing into the tire:

It's kind of ugly but is not a problem because the cuts aren't deep enough to get to the tire cord.  I rode all day today on it with no problem. 

Tomorrow Mark and Jon ride back to their homes and Carolyn and I continue on my route.  We are going to be in West Virginia and the good stuff.