4: Virginia

The West Virginia ride is done. Where to begin?

To say that the entire riding experience was absolutely perfect wouldn't be an exaggeration at all. I had been scoping the weather forecasts for 48 hours before my departure Saturday morning, and they turned out to be accurate. The weather was fantastic, and remained as such for my entire outing. There was an issue later on, but it was not nature's fault that I was a bit unprepared.

I left home in Maryland at around 0800, and immediately went to my local Starbucks. Those who know me may also know that I am more of a coffee-shop commando than a hardcore distance rider. I frequent this particular place because of A: giant black coffees with a place outside to sit and drink them, and B: there's a Sunoco station adjacent to it. Fuel for the bike, fuel for me in one stop. I am all about economy of motion.



I fueled the DRZ and did a last minute check of it's status. Oil was good, gear secured well. This is the bike ready to go. As mentioned in the last entry, I was traveling very light. I usually do, but for this trip I didn't even bring a change of clothes.



That early(ish) hour on a Saturday afforded me fast and easy expressway travel. I-270 to Rt. 340 from Germantown, Md to Harpers Ferry, WV at a nice clip of 70-75 mph. I don't ask for much more than that from the little DRZ, and it's so light that at that speed, the wind has it's way with you. Wind notwithstanding, I arrived in Harpers Ferry in just over 45 minutes and stopped to get a few photos and stretch. I love this place, and I return frequently. My fondness for all things Civil War related, combined with the natural features near this crux of the Potomac and the Shenandoah make this a favorite location for me.





Leaving Harpers Ferry and back onto 340 South. Moving at an easy pace through West Virginia. I realized that I left home without breakfast, and decided to stop in Charles Town. I had seen a diner there in the past, always bikes there. I jumped in here to eat eggs benedict and drink more coffee (always more coffee). Good food, I would definitely return. (In fact, on the trip home, I did).



Finished with the eggs, I made my way south at a good pace. Something about Virginia and it's little neighbor to the west raises my spirits. This couldn't have come at a better time. The past week has been total hell for me. On Wednesday, I was involved in a fairly bad car accident involving my company vehicle. This is never good. Even worse, my vehicle is a giant Chevy Silverado 2500, and I t-boned an old couple in a Malibu at 40 mph. I was unhurt, fortunately, as I had the advantage of 3 tons of steel over the car. The elderly man needed to be cut from the car, and I am not sure of his disposition now. He is damned lucky to have survived, as his car was almost folded in half due to his mistake (I must interject here that my callousness is due to the fact that I was not at fault in this event. A state trooper was even there to see this old man rocket out in front of my truck, which absolves me in court and at work). Nonetheless, there were phone-calls and meetings at work due to this, and my body is sore everywhere from the impact. No better time to get out of town and forget the entire week.

An hour later, I arrived in Front Royal, Va - the north end of Shenandoah National Forest and Skyline Drive. I was earlier than I had expected, so I chose to take Skyline Drive south for a while before deciding where to set up camp. I paid my $10 at the entrance (worth it), and took off up onto the ridges.





Skyline Drive is long. It's also relatively slow - about 35-40 throughout. It's a National Park, so it's to be expected. Families on sightseeing trips and hikers on this leg of the Appalachian Trail have as much right to it as motorcyclists, so it has to be a little slow. This doesn't make it's twists and turns any less enjoyable, as you kind of want to look around. This is tough to do if you're screaming around turns at 70. This road is great for beginner motorcyclists too. the regulated speeds keep it sane enough to learn how to hold a turn.

Being a holiday weekend with perfect weather, the ridges and hills were inundated with riders. Originally, I had planned to take this trip with a partner, but this was not to be. His company decided to have him work through the entire long weekend - a great example of the stupid contradictions between hard work and success and the rewards that come from them. He is good at what he does and works hard, and because of this his company asks him to do more and work harder. Not great motivation to do ones best. Sorry you missed it, Robin.

However, I had no problems finding others to ride with, even if only to tag along here and there. Riders of every kind were everywhere, the majority being the typical Big Twin "Bro" types. There were enough Screamin' Eagle pipes in those hills to fill an 18 wheeler. (You'd think with all of the revenue that Screamin' Eagle brings in from overpriced exhaust pipes, that they could afford the missing 'G'). I rode with different groups for a couple of hours. Every person I met said almost the same thing: "Can you believe this friggin' weather man?" All were friendly and in great moods, understandably.







For anyone who hasn't been to Shenandoah, go. The views are spectacular, and Virginia is filled with history - more so than nearly anywhere in this country. This is the backyard of Robert E. Lee, the home of Stonewall T.J. Jackson (two of my personal heroes and favorite figures in history). It's not hard to see why Lee chose Virginia over country when given the choice.





This group of guys was European, maybe German. I tagged along from overlook to overlook for a while. Very good riders. They held lines like robots. I am, on the other hand, all over the damned road. (I like to call it "free-form" cruising).



This is Sridhar. He rides the entire Skyline Drive every year - this year on that nice little Buell with the fuel-in-frame and blue Lexan false tank. He's from the DC area as well, and we bump into each other repeatedly throughout the morning.



A couple photo-ops later, and my watch (R.I.P.*) says it's midday. I turned around and headed back to Front Royal to decide where I am going to sleep that night. My plan was to get into West Virginia, so I wanted my spot to be as strategic as possible.



I left the park and went a mile or so north. Time for fuel and some water for me. I had the Camelback on, but I planned to use that throughout the trip when there were less options for drink. At the 7-11 I found fuel - and a couple of local bikers, Chris and Tom, who directed me to a potential available camping spot. I was going to take their picture, bu thought better of it. They very well might have called me a "homo" and kicked my ass for photographing them. But their directions were good, and I found a spot to claim in George Washington National Forest -outside of WV, but close enough to use as home base. It was a public area under Signal Knob on Fork Valley Road. $10 later and I had a place to be. A nice one too. The cliffs behind Signal Knob were visible from my site, and a big stream bubbled close by. I broke out some gear and set up my camp before taking off again.



It was around noon and already it was nice and quiet here. I foraged for rocks to build up the existing fire-ring, and found a few chunks of wood for later that night. This process effectively dissolved almost all of the stress that had built up this past week. By the time I had my camp arranged, I had forgotten all about it, and wouldn't think of it again until my return home.

With home-base ready, I sped off to West Virginia via Route 55. This took me through Strasburg, Va, and other little towns. I stopped in to a small roadside gas station to top off, and at the same time another motorcyclist pulled in from the opposite direction. It turned out to be a girl (baby-blue jacket and lid gave it away to begin with, and a couple of "other things" clued me in as well). The tag on her Ninja 500 said "Blondy". She was, in fact. We discussed good riding routes that she had just come from. She suggested a few roads, and looked a little shocked at hearing of the travel I was putting on the DRZ - not that her Ninja seat looked much more comfortable. I didn't ask her name for fear of it being misconstrued as trying to pick her up. I didn't snap a picture for fear of looking like a pervert. I'll have to work on that if I want this blog to have good detail. (She was nice looking, take my word for it.)


Route 55 seemed like the biggest waste of highway engineering on the planet. Miles and miles of beautiful road, enormous sweepers, rises and falls, with almost no entrances or exits - and not a soul on it! Like a ghost highway. I stopped to stretch and take a few photos once, and there were long periods of time that I felt like the only person on Earth. Dead silence aside from insect noise and a little breeze. I think I saw a car every 5 minutes -hardly enough to justify such a highway. Good for me, because the ride was great, like having my own private freeway. The DRZ performed as well here as it did in the tighter bends on the mountain, but my ass was really killing me by that time. I will have to address the seat issue sometime.



I made it to Moorefield before I decided that I was pretty worn out, and wanted to make sure that I was in camp with enough time to settle in before sunset. So, I spun around at Petersburg and went back the same way I came out. Another fuel stop...

(I am convinced that the DRZ's fuel tank and seat are a symbiotic relationship. If the tank was bigger I would ride further in a stretch, but the seat hurts like hell so I can't. So about the time my monkey butt kicks in is about the same time I run out of fuel.)

...and then dinner. I scoured around for a place to eat in Strasburg and found Cristina's Mexican Restaurant. It was a little crowded, so I guessed it was popular, from which I inferred good food. I was damned wrong. If anyone reading this ever finds themselves in Strasburg, do not ever, under any circumstances short of life-threatening starvation, eat at Cristina's. (Even under that threat I would opt to eat my own foot). Nachos with plain unseasoned ground beef (ground beef!) and movie theatre cheese sauce. A chimichanga that was so bland that I think the chicken was marinated in nothing more than diluted ketchup. Crap. The Coronas were ice cold, which is good. I stole napkins to use as fire-starter later. Hardly worth the $18 check. Back to camp.

I started a fire with the wood I could scrounge. I didn't bring an axe, so I had to make due. broke down my remaining gear and sat for a couple of hours staring at the night sky that I can't see from my house. The Milky Way and it's black gas and dust clouds, Cassiopeia circling the polestar, satellites cutting across the sky, a wayward meteor here and there. I heard 3 different owls, coyotes, some unknown crazy-sounding creature not too far from camp. Time to turn in...





...Fuck! Cold! At 3 AM, I woke up freezing. I didn't bring a sleeping bag, and was using my riding gear as a bed. Sleeping in a t-shirt and pants, I wasn't ready for 45-50 degrees. I had counted on 65-70 at night, and I was dead wrong. I guess the elevation and location played a part. No matter why, I was up. Out of the tent and putting on everything I had available for warmth. I did my best to scrape up whatever wood I could to start another fire, but it was small and burned fast. For 2 hours, I just maintained the fire and waited for the sun to rise.



Once the sun did rise, I brushed my teeth with the Camelback water, wiped down the bike with my one spare shirt, and broke down my camp. It was still chilly, but the sun would soon take care of that. Next time I'll account for the weather possibilities.





A little helmet-hiking and I was on my way home. I would have stayed another night to get some real hiking in, but given my lack of rest the night before and the cold night temps, I decided against it.

The return trip to Md was fast, as I wasn't stopping to sight-see. The ride was brisk at first, but the sun finally did it's job and the day turned out beautiful. I did stop at the same diner on the way home for those eggs and coffee again. Good stuff.



All in all, I put 400 miles under my wheels, and enjoyed every single one. The trip served it's purpose and cleared my skull of the previous week's junk. The DRZ did well. Power where I needed it, agility to spare. I need to re-fit it for more cargo, and that seat thing... but I would and will take this ride again soon, and would suggest that anyone else do the same.

*If you're going to spray DEET all over yourself to keep bugs away, take off your plastic watch. It will turn into goo, especially if you are using the good DEET.