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Back at our rooms, we packed everything up and walked
outside to wipe the dew from our bikes. The roads were wet, but
the sun was up and burning the mist from the hills. We loaded up,
and were ready to take advantage of our early start until I decide
to try and snap a picture of the four of us using my camera's automatic
timer. It took me about 20 tries before I got the barely passable
photo you see above. As this was our first real day we started out
with roads more prone to laid back sweepers than to tight curves.
Our days route started out with us heading deeper into West Virginia.
We crisscrossed the Monongahela National Forest, heading first West,
then South, then back East and finally South again into Virginia
for the night. We were just beginning to find our stride as a group
after a couple of hours when we headed into the most difficult section
of the day, the serpentine route 66 to Cass, WV. I had been forced
to drive route 66 a couple of years earlier in an underpowered Subaru,
and it was one of the main roads in WV I was looking forward to
on a bike. As we headed up the mountain, the curves got tighter,
we got more aggressive, the tree cover got denser, and the road
got wetter. This turned out to be an unfortunate combination. About
halfway up the mountain we came across a car that had lost traction
on the wet turns and ended up nose first five feet down in a ditch.
Naturally we stopped to offer help. Unfortunately as we stopped
we each ate up what room there was left in the turn forcing Matt,
who was at the rear, to lay his bike down. Matt quite elegantly
ditched his bike, never touching the ground with anything other
than his boots. The bike scraped along the pavement until it tapped
into the ditched car. Matt was entirely unhurt but in our rush to
get his bike upright again, he cut his hand on his newly damaged
fairing. Oh the irony. He got a clear 10 for the dismount but rates
a slightly lower score for his follow through. The whole thing was
of course quite nerve wracking. It was also kind of embarrassing.
After apologizing for crashing into an already crashed car, we were
forced to bear the generous offers of assistance of everyone who
drove by. These were of course the same people we had just passed
recklessly on our way up the mountain. I will say one thing for
people in West Virginia, and every where we traveled for that matter:
they sure are NICE! We resolved to take it easier and headed on
to lunch at Sharpe's
Olde Country Store and Museum in Slatyfork, WV.
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full tummies equals
happiness
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There aren't a ton of places to places to eat on the country roads
of West Virginia, but Sharpe's Olde Country Store definitely rates
a stop. The sandwiches are nothing special but the store itself is
quite pleasant. It looks like it's been in business for a long time
with old fashion display cases, pine slat floors, a table for checkers
and various bric-a-brac and what not strewn through out the store.
After taking in the ambiance, we stepped outside to finish our sandwiches
and a couple of great classic bikes pulled up.
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a real motorcycle
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Two really nice old Harleys and an Indian with a suicide shift. These
weren't your typical trailered boulevarders either. The gents riding
them and driven down from Ohio and Illinois for a week, tooling around
on West Virginias country roads just like us. A light rain had commenced,
and we were all duly impressed when these guys roared off down the
curvy road on bikes with tires and brakes from yesteryear. I hope
I'm still taking as much pleasure as those guys were from riding when
I get to be their age. Giving ourselves a good half hour to digest
we all trooped one by one to what must be one of the skankiest bathrooms
in any state; then it was back at it.
After lunch we retraced our steps and headed back up to Cass on route
66. This is the only time on the whole trip we rode the same road
twice. Unfortunately it also meant we would have to ride the same
curve where Matt bailed again. It was still misting, and the road
was slippery so we took it super easy. By the time we reached the
fateful curve, the crashed car was gone and there was nothing but
a couple of tire tracks in the ditch to indicate anything had ever
happened. I think we were all riding a little nervous; I definitely
was. Riding nervous is never a good idea. The last time I had a similar
experience of tiptoeing around mountain curves like this was 12 years
previously when a member of a group ride I was on in Japan crashed
and died. That was horrible enough, but this time I was feeling really
responsible, having planned, organized and spent months cajoling everybody
to come on the trip. It became clear to me that we were biting off
more than Matt was ready to chew. He'd just begun to motorcycle, and
he was still new enough that he needed to be spending time on less
aggressive roads with less aggressive riders. I should have known
this before we left but had shirked my responsibility to be more realistic
about his depth of skill because I wanted him on the trip so badly.
We had talked about it and agreed that if he felt like the pace was
too much, he would simply go slower, reasoning you can get through
anything if you go slowly enough. Unfortunately, this totally discounts
the reality of group riding dynamics. I should have known better.
Matt was being good about going his own pace, but it was clear that
it was just too much for him. Luckily he clearly had been having similar
thoughts, and when we stopped for the night, we decided to work out
a less arduous route for him each day. We would spend as much of the
day as possible riding on reasonable roads together, but he would
take alternate routes when possible to avoid the extremely aggressive
stuff, or just to cut down on the number of miles he did each day.
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Adam executing his
patented mount up
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After we made it up the mountain and through Cass the sun came out,
and things began to look up. We spent the early part of the afternoon
exiting the Monongahela National Forest heading East and crossing
into Virginia on Route 250. Virginia was breathtakingly beautiful.
We traveled up and over several Appalachian ridges, descending down
into valleys, each more spectacular than the last. The bucolic rolling
hills and sun drenched farms of Western Virginia were just what I
had imagined when I was planning the trip. The road was not unduly
aggressive, and I began to again believe that the trip was just what
all four of us needed to be doing at that time. I know for me there
was nothing I could have imagined that I would rather have been doing.
After about an hour we turned and headed South on route 42 towards
our evenings lodging in Millboro Springs, Virginia. Though route 42
is without significant curves, it runs through a charmingly beautiful
valley different in every sense from New York City. Happy to have
left the city behind I was finally feeling relaxed, and the trip had
truly begun. |
