We’ll be departing with our good friend Charlie. He decided to make the run from Savannah to Michigan in order to begin the trip with us on Monday. He arrived safely Sunday afternoon. After dinner, I felt a disturbance in the force. As Charlie pulled his bike into the garage, I spotted the culprit in the form of a Zumo wiring harness in need of proper stowage... Side cutters and zip ties made short work of it, and within 30 minutes, the spider web that was his Zumo wiring harness was neatly bundled and stored. All was right in the universe. Loaded and ready to roll, we retired for the evening. Sleep would be hard to come by for me. I was wired and ready to ride. Monday morning could not come soon enough.
Monday, 20 September 2010. Home to Zanesville, Ohio.
Time to hit the road. We were up early and ready (actually, I don’t think I slept much at all). There was a slight chill in the air, with temps in the upper 50’s. But clear skies promised a good day lie ahead. The worst part about were we live now is that there’s about 90 miles of slab between us and Ohio. No way around it, just suck it up and pound it out. We hit Toledo and ditched the slab in favor of some secondary blacktop. Annette chimed in with, “Tim Horton’s would be nice right about now.” This was the first trip with the Zumo 660 Annette (aka the best wife ever) had gotten me as an early birthday present. A few pokes had a new via point selected as the nearest Tim-Ho’s. Mr. Garmin led us to a hidden jewel called OH-105, or Scotch Ridge Road. Clear, clean, new tarmac and no traffic. Wonderful way to wrap up leg 1.
After a cup’o’joe or two (Charlie), we headed out of Bowling Green. It was pretty uneventful between there and Columbus. We did try out OH-315 on the way into Columbus, which turned out to be a nice little alternative to US-23. Columbus was laid in as a via point for a very specific reason. Charlie had never been to the Ironpony.com store. If you haven’t, you’ve missed out on the ultimate motorcycle crack junkie store. Take their entire website inventory and put it on a Super Wal-Mart sized building. As we walked in, we, in unison, told Charlie, “put back the shopping cart…” We escaped with minimal additional cargo.
Back on the road, we headed east towards our first night’s hotel in Zanesville. Along the way, we passed a few of the locals on the way home from town. We also stopped at the Dillon dam at the southeast end of the Dillon State Park. The road leading down to the lower level sure would have been more fun if not for the speed bumps half way up. We rolled into the hotel around 5-ish, and grabbed dinner across the street at Olive Garden.
Monday’s full album can be viewed here.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010. Zanesville to Weston, WV.
The morning brought clear sunny skies for a second day. On the menu today is OH-555. On the out of town, we took a side trip over the Y-bridge and up to a scenic overview of the bridge. There was also a neat art display on the side of the road; some hooligans actually road across the lawn to get a picture of them…
Bustanut was here.
The Ohio Triple Nickel. And oh what fun it was. OH-555 is such a fun, unique road. It stretches south from Zanesville to just west of Parkersburg, WV. It spills south over the rolling hills of southeast Ohio through farm country towards the West Virginia border. What I love about it is its sharp elevation changes and unpredictability. You don’t know which way the road is going to turn over the next hill. There are so many surprise direction changes just past the crest of these rolling hills, it holds the pace down. Push too hard and next thing you know you’re in the oncoming lane on the back side of a hill trying to heal the bike over to make a turn. After that little roller coaster ride, a visit to Tim-Ho’s was in order. Again, Mr. Garmin to the rescue.
We were in the hunt to see a covered bridge or two on Monday, but had no luck. Today, a little more effort was rewarded with not one, but three such historic sites. The first was down a short gravel road. Well worth the added risk of taking a fully loaded, 2-up FJR down said gravel road. This will come back to haunt us in a few days (the gravel, that is).
Once on the move again, our route took us northeast out of Marietta and onto OH-26. What a great road, all the way to Woodfield, Ohio. We stopped for lunch there in Woodsfield, and were greeted by a local gentleman (his name escapes me now) He steered us towards Kiedaisch Point near Hannible as a must see scenic overlook. A short side trip off of OH-536 had us standing over the Ohio River enjoying a great view.
We spend a little more time enjoying the sights today, so we chose to drop a few miles off the route (and this gives me a reason to return to SE Ohio). We caught the ferry across to Sistersville, WV. Does this count as a water-crossing, Jeff? Once into WV, we made a pit stop for refreshments; it had turned unseasonably warm, temps in the lower 90’s. I had laid out a route to take in some roads that looked promising in the atlas, but it was getting late. I decided to let Mr. Garmin take us straight to the hotel. First mistake. When it initially routed us, it said 42 miles to the hotel. Once moving, it suddenly said 78 miles to the hotel. WTF?? A bunch of pokes reviled that it was trying to take us north and east to I-79. 30 miles out of the way to put us on the slab. Not this fella. Right turn had the little bastard more than confused, and since Charlie was running the same route in his 660, I think there was some doubt in that camp too. I’ve always been pretty good a land nav in the Corps; and it didn’t fail me this time either. Over the hill and through the woods we went, and landed in Weston at the Comfort Inn. Dinner, shower, and a good night’s sleep were in order.
Tuesday’s full album can be viewed here.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010. Weston to Lewisburg, WV.
Just in case Mr. Garmin OD's today:
We woke to another great day. How lucky could we be? Today’s LZ (landing zone) was Lewisburg, WV. We made our way east from Weston towards Seneca Rocks. We decided to take the Seneca Caverns tour and had lunch there as well. Really neat place to see if you happen to be in the area and have an hour or so to kill. We continued to work our way south from there and made a quick drive by of the National Radio Observatory. We continued south on WV-28, then west on WV-66 past the Snowshoe ski resort area. While getting gas, we bumped into another FJR; Ice_station_Zebra on his way to Knoxville from up north.
Intercom transcript, “You are not going up that goat trail with me on the bike”
The range on that Scala headset is amazing. All the way up around the corner, “Wayne, stop right now.” This is SAD Wayne. No goat trails today.
We made a right onto WV-150, also known as “Highland Scenic Drive”. Think of it as a mini Cherohala. Our luck with the weather ran out here. A few rain drops hit the windshield. Heavy application of throttle. Just as it started to rain enough to dampen the pavement, we broke out of it. It just doesn’t get any better than this. We were in Lewisburg before we knew it, another great day behind us.
Check out these boots.
It just so happened that a couple other lost souls stumbled in shortly after us. We enjoyed dinner and caught up on current affairs with our good friends spklbuk and spkldoe (aka Jim & Creta). Much talk of two wheels ensued.
Wednesday’s full album can be viewed here.
Thursday, 23 September 2010. Lewisburg to Johnson City, TN.
Well now, today we were greeted by quit the motley crew. What have we gotten ourselves into? We started out with a lighter day. There was light traffic on WV219 south towards Virginia early in the morning. We made a quick stop on VA-62 outside of Narrows. Back in September 2008, we had set out for Burke’s Garden. Two years later, we finally made it there. What a beautiful, secluded valley. I’m sure there are countless places like this in the area. As we rolled along taking in the scenery, I missed a fairly serious road hazard. Somehow, I managed to miss a 52lb cow pie in the middle of the road (hey, it was in the shade…). I hit it, and the splatter went up the left side of the bike, saddlebag, my boot, riding pants. Annette, somehow, managed to not get hit at all. I think there was a higher power at work there. Someone mentioned that there was a back way out of the valley, but we’re going to stick to the pavement today (at least, for right now). We stopped a bit early for lunch, but we were guaranteed that this place would be worth it.
After lunch, things heated up some, both the temperature and the pace. Southbound on VA-16, we stretched it out some. The kudzu adds a unique texture to the landscape. We Rolled into Johnson City around 5 or 6. The temp readout displayed 91 degrees. It is September, right?
After dinner, somebody mentioned we were just a short hop from TN421 aka “the Snake”. Night rides have become addictive little habit when Jeff and I ride together. So we headed out along with Dom. We discovered that there are speed cameras and they work between Johnson City and Shady Valley. Now this is where someone gave me a taste of something that would proof to be irresistible. In a word, “Ohlins”. Enough said.
Thursday’s full album can be viewed here.
Friday, 24 September 2010. Johnson City to Cumberland Falls, KY
We were greeting by Gumpy and Snow White, who were already waiting on us when we walked through the hotel lobby. They would join us for a few days, but we were also down a couple riders. Charlie had to cut the trip short due to work, and Big Frank decided to head home early as well. We rolled out north and west from Johnson City, enjoying the rolling hills of western Tennessee and eastern Kentucky for most of the morning. Another great day of riding weather was on tap for us, and we chewed up the miles. We stopped for lunch, and I had this eerie feeling that this was too good to be true. All the roads so far had lines painted on them.
A couple hours later, I realized we’d be suckered in. One right hand turn took us from nice, smooth clean tarmac to a naked one laner, which quickly deteriorated to gravel. Not packed, smooth gravel; more like golf ball sized rocks dumped out the back of a farmers wagon to make a “road”. I just couldn’t get enough speed to get on top of it; it was so rough Annette couldn’t take it. So I slowed to a crawl and wrestled the bike for about 8 miles. About 2 miles into it, I had a true “oh crap” moment when I heard the squealing brakes of a school bus that had to been clicking along at about 60mph when it came up on us (doing 3.7mph)! The “road” at this point had deteriorated to the point that I couldn’t pull over to let the bus by. So we crept along for about a half mile with the bus 2” off the Givi. I spied a drive way to make an attempt on, but the bus put on its lights and turned around. The “road” withered even more, and I really thought that at any moment, I’d see the lead bike(s) coming back towards us saying “gotta turn around”. One downhill portion produced a nice tank slapper and I hollered to Annette that we were going down. A handful of throttle straightened the bike back out; but I had to stop and clean out my skivvies… Apparently, we were taking too long with our navigation of the “road”, and a rescue party was dispatched. The “road” turned back to tarmac and everyone was waiting for us.
The final run into Cumberland Falls State Park Resort was tremendous. A secondary two laner that snaked its way along the ridges west(I think) of the park. No traffic and great views made for a great way to finish up the day. We checked in and made our way to the buffet. Cumberland Falls resort definitely has potential as a location to host a future gathering. At the end of day 5, the miles are starting to take their toll.
Friday’s full album can be viewed here.
Saturday, 25 September 2010. Cumberland Falls to Wheelersburg, Ohio
Again, we’re greeted with clear skies as we loaded the bikes. Today would be our last day with the main group. The plan was to follow along until about 1030 or so, then peel off and begin our trek north towards home.
We made the obligatory tourist stop at the falls on the way out. It’s quite a beauty site in the early morning light.
We followed northeasterly over some really nice stretches of tarmac. I have definitely got to make time to get back to this area and explore some more. Great roads, low traffic volume, and awesome scenery.
As we were working our way along a decent stretch of road, I hit a frost heave or dip that bottomed the suspension. The resulting hit, along with my body position at that point combined to double me over. I had a sharp pain shoot up my lower back towards my shoulder. I tried to ride it out, but the ensuing muscle spasms just got worse. I slowed and was finally able to get stopped. A few minutes of stretching and walking off the bike helped tremendously. I knew at this point, I needed to ease up and run at a pace that the suspension could keep up with. We caught up with everyone at what would be the best place for us to break contact at. The rest of the group would turn southeasterly towards Asheville, NC, and we would continue north to Lexington, KY.
Saturday’s full album can be viewed here.
Sunday, 26 September 2010. The run home.
The weather held for another day, with the exception of it being slightly on the cool side and overcast. We worked our way north out of Wheelersburg, Ohio on back roads. We had a little surprise as we crested a sharp rise in 2nd gear in the form of a nice wheelie. Annette didn’t think it was so nice… The rest of the ride home was uneventful for the most part.
Sunday’s full album can be viewed here.
Reflections.
We could not have asked for better weather or better traveling companions during this trip. The unseasonably warm days were a pleasant and welcomed. The bike ran flawlessly, but I revealed some deficiencies that need to be addressed if we’re going to do more multi-day trips like this. Running fully loaded and two-up had the stock suspension maxed out; it was not able to cope with any moderate or worse road imperfections. There are some Ohlin’s parts out there with my name on them, for sure.
We traveled about 2200 miles in 7 days. Of that, we were on expressway less than 200 of it. Great weather, great roads shared with the best of friends. This is what we live for. Ride There.
