So, now that I'm a little more rested, here's what happened:
Left Friday morning ~ 1000. Perfect temperature and weather, low traffic. I had originally planned to take shots at every state welcome sign (went through 4) but that was not in the cards. Arrived Friday evening without issue. Collapsed upon arrival. After food, beverage and rest I learned about all of the muscles that get used on a long bike ride. Had a great weekend overall.
Interesting lessons learned:
- There isn't a "Welcome to _______" sign that has a shoulder in front of it. At least not in MD, PA, OH or WV. Scratch those photo ops.
- Two of the coolest little sleepy towns I've ever seen were Cumberland, MD and Clarksburg, WV. They look like they were cut out of the '30s.
- Speed limits in WV are
high. Moving with traffic, I routinely saw sustained 80+ jaunts. And by jaunts, I mean 50 - 90 mile stretches.
-
Nobody on the east coast uses highway 68 with any kind of regularity. It was a ghost road... all the way across MD and continuing into WV.
- There isn't a bridge between VA/MD/WV/OH that has a shoulder. No awesome architectural photos there either.
- Nine solid hours of riding at/above/around highway speeds is tiring and difficult.
- AT&T coverage has definitely gotten much better. I was able to have more than a few "check-in" conversations with the wifey along the way. Not a single dropped call. Go figure.
- highways 68, 79, 50, 77, 76 all look
IDENTICAL. You could take four pictures at each location and wouldn't be able to discern their locations or origins. I literally felt like I had a nice, pretty drive on the same road through the same town... for about nine hours straight.
Then came the trip home yesterday.
What a price to pay for such a perfect trip out to OH. Against my better judgment, we took the PA turnpike home instead of heading back through WV because it was supposed to be
much faster. Wrong. Horrible wrong. It was exactly 39 minutes faster than the additional 120 miles the WV route would have required.
- Rained about six of the eight hours it took to get home. Fun! Actually, it wasn't so bad until after it got dark.
- You think cars ignore bikers on the roads normally? L
watched me put a foot on two different fenders (at two different times) as I was pushed into the shoulder.
ing look for motorcycles when you drive please. You're going to kill someone. That person has family and as much of a right to live as you do (even if only arguably so) while you are driving your SUV while eating and chatting on the cell phone.
- If you have to pull off to the shoulder to apply rain gear, make sure your bike is more than
1.5 feet away from the solid line defining the shoulder.
If you only pull an entire foot away from that line, some jackass is going to be reaching down to grab something as they're passing you by, come into the shoulder (note earlier posted distances) and nudge your bike enough to knock it off the kickstand and send it crashing down.
- Righting a crashed bike in the rain is a mother
er.
All things considered, it could have been much worse. I need to replace and/or repaint some parts on the bike, but it is in ride-able condition. Thank FSM nobody got hurt.
CN's: Don't drive to OH via PA. It SUCKS. A LOT. WV is amazingly beautiful and should be the preferred route to avoid PA and its god-awful turnpike. Long rides are long. Sleep is good. Plan on cagers killing you at all times.
I still prefer riding to driving. I hate how dangerous it is. We'll see how my opinion fares a few years from now.
I'll post the few pics I was able to snap tonight. Words can't do it much justice, here's hoping my pics do.
I LIEK DAT STRETCH ON 68, DRIV IT EVRY TIEM I GO WEST.
