I thought it would be fun to add some rides and bike rebuilds from my past in a sad attempt to add content to my blog. This was a day ride I did in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia 10 years ago.
Sometimes you just need to ride. Other people have therapists, I have a motorcycle. Whenever life starts to pile up and get to me, all I ever need to do is jump on the bike, twist the throttle and head out somewhere special and just let twisty roads and beautiful scenery bring me back to an even keel. I must have had "that" look the other day, because my wife suggested a good long ride might do me some good. Hey, who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? So at the crack of dawn, I suited up, gassed the 990 up and headed west, my destination Sirianni's Pizza in Davis WV. I planned a nice twisty route there via some of the best roads in these here parts. I started out on Route 40 west over Sidling Hill nd on through to Cumberland, Md. Sidling Hill
Then it was 220 south and 50 west into Virginia and some sweet twisties... Interesting Marker Stone on highway 50, no idea what it means...
Patterson Creek in VA.
Crossing into West Virginia
WV's best motorcycling road is Smoke Hole Road.
The worst thing about the road is that the rider in me wanted to just crank it and go while the part of me that loves the scenery was constantly tempted by the beautiful views all along the length of the road. Thankfully, after one stop, I put the tourist away and got in touch with my inner Casey Stoner. Many miles down the road, I came to a T intersection and got to play Mr. Tourist again... Saw this cool little store...
I followed the creek for the next several miles and had a blast...
Finally, I came to the end of the road and turned right and headed west some more towards Seneca Rocks...
I stopped by a little store to resupply water and snacks.
I filled the water bladder of my hydration pack, ate my candy bar and beat it for parts further west. My new destination was now Davis West Virginia and a kick ass lunch. Up and over the Eastern Coninental Divide (I crossed the divide something like four times in all this day)...
It is not as tall as the one further west, but full of some beautiful views for sure! I think this was High Germany Valley...
I can't remember all the turn offs, I have them written down anyhow, but after another hour of fun twisty West Virginia state highways and back roads I finally came to the turn for Canaan Loop Rd. It is pretty low key at first, but eventually winds up and really gets tough as it goes from groomed gravel to rutted double track, at least for my feeble off road skills. Still, it was one of the main reasons I came out here, so tempting fate, I headed in.
Eventually, the road deteriorated to very rutted and muddy double track. I came to a point where after nearly dropping the 990 three times, I stopped to take stock of my situation. The stock Pirelli Scorpions were really out of traction at this point and I knew there was a fairly tricky off camber rocky section up ahead. I didn't think the Scorp's or I could handle it safely and since I was riding solo, I put away my pride, did a u turn and headed back the way I came. I was a little sad I didn't complete the road, but I also didn't want to go down alone on a seldom used section of road with no cell service. The good news was, since I knew the condition of the road now, I could open the 990 up a bit and slide around some corners on the way back. So where I had been fairly conservative on my ride in and stayed around 25mph, i was now comfortable with doing almost double that on the way back. I HAD A BLAST!!! This bike was made for his sort of hooligan style riding.
Then it was onto Davis and a well earned lunch...Ahhhh, my favorite place to eat!!
It was a nice break at Sirianni's Pizza. I had an Italian sub and some fries which I washed down with some cold ice tea. After an hour break, I headed up the road to Thomas to refill the 990 (they only had 10 percent ethanol...ugh) and my camelback. After paying for the fuel and drinks, I came outside and found a guy ogling the 990. We got to chatting a bit about riding. Seems he owns a GS and was really interested in the 990 as he had never seen one in person. He really liked how narrow the bike was and told me he saw me flying down Canaan Loop Rd earlier like a bat out of hell. He had been in a pull off down at the creek it seems. We said our goodbye's and I buttoned up and headed up 219 north towards Oakland, Md. Even though I was pretty fried at this point, I decided to head to the Fairfax stone, which had a little back road (Co. Rte. 9) I knew that was a blast to ride. I passed on seeing the stone, no biggie as I had seen it before and it was nothing more than a small plaque commemorating the source of the Potomac river (if I remember right). Anyhow, a mile down the road I came up on a black bear. Scared the snot out of it. It was in the center of the road and it tore off into the underbrush before I could get my camera out. I stopped the bike anyhow and watched where he ran to and was rewarded with seeing him make a bolt for it again and watched him climb a tree about 50 feet into the forrest. I wrestled with the idea of walking to the tree and taking a picture of him, but then common sense took over and I realized that being under a scared black bear was not the best idea I ever had. So I fired the 990 back up and headed down the road. I crossed back into Maryland at a little no name town and found a cool abandoned brick building to frame in the afternoon sun...
Eventually I got back onto highway 50, east his time and headed for Romney when came across Highway 42 north, which looked promising enough, so I made the turn and off I went. I didn't have far to go before a cool truck caught my eye to the right so I stopped and took these pics...
A little further down the road was this view of Lake Jennings Randolf...
That was the last photo I would take. I was really fried and just worked on reading the road and working my way home. So from there I made my way to 68 east and back over Sidling Hill to Hagerstown and a cold bottle of Dogfishhead IPA (well, more like 4 cold bottles!). In all I would cover just under 500 miles, about 50 of which were dirt/gravel road. I ate at my favorite restaraunt and rode some of my favorite roads. By the time I got home to enjoy some barley pop, I had also worked through "that" look as well. It is so nice to not need to spill my guts to a therapist. Riding a motorcycle is way more fun anyhow. If anyone wants better route data, let me know. I am going to head back to Davis soon to spend a couple days exploring the rest of the dirt trails and roads around there and to maybe hit Dolly Sods as well. For now though, I am just happy to have taken a day to ride these roads....cheers!
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