2024 Trip 1 - Day 7

May 7, 2024

After a day off in Pittsburgh it was time to hit the road again.  Dan and I discussed routes and departure times and decided to shoot for an 8 am leave.  I got the morning going and hauled my stuff out to the garage where the bikes were parked and started the loading up process.  And, it is a process as things have to be done in a certain order.  Side cases first followed by clothes bag, tent, sleeping bag, and then the backpack.  The tank bag can go on anytime but is usually last.

Loading me on the bike is also a process: jacket on, earplugs in, helmet on, gloves on.  Oh, dang, the key is in my pocket so glove off, get key, glove on.  Then I remember to reset the trip meter so do that.  Now I’m ready.

I pulled down the alley and waited for Dan, who will be leader today, to pull past me.

The weather is perfect with about 65°, no wind, and only an overcast sky.  We proceeded out of town on Hwy 51 which for a ways has lots a traffic and stop lights but finally gives way to an open road and we sailed on heading southeast.  We stopped to top off our gas tanks in Oliver at a Sheetz, a gas station/convenience store which also serves food.  Dan says they have a really good burritos and we plan to try them somewhere on the trip.

Dan was in charge of the route so I didn’t get a completely accurate recording of the way we went but this is a pretty close.  It was a combination of fast 2-lanes. A 4-lane divided highway, and lots of backroads.

We did encounter construct along the way but only had to stop once.

We rode into Maryland and went by Deep Lake, a huge lake with lots of resorts around it.  We stopped for a not-so-picturesque photo.

The blue dot shows our location there.

Traveling Hwy 48 near Keyser we stopped for a photo break.

We did encounter rain at one point.  The clouds looked threatening and we saw one biker on the side pulling on rain gear but we went through it and lucked out as it was only about 5-10 miles before it cleared up.

In Strasberg it was time for lunch so we hit a Subway.

We left Maryland and rode into West Virginia for a while (I don’t exactly remember when those borders were crossed) and into Virginia.  After a few more miles and we skirted Front Royal and entered the Shenandoah National Park.  In the past, at least at the Big Horn Battlefield, my Lifetime Military Interagency pass would admit two motorcycles but here they said that cards that do that are being phased out so my card got me in and my credit card got Dan in.

The main road through the park is Skyline Drive.

We rode to the visitor center and I got my dash cam mounted to pick up some vids of this portion of the ride.  We met some other bikers and had a nice chat with them and they gave us tips for the rest of our ride.  There was a lookout nearby.

The next 105 miles was all twisty roads through forest and heavily wooded areas.  The speed limit through the park is 35 mph but with the very light traffic I think we averaged about 48 mph.  I am guessing that there were 2 dozen turns in every mile, with most of them labeled 30 mph.  I got in LOTS of practice in handling the bike on this type of road.  While I generally am agnostic about which tire is better to run on the bike, these new Michelin Pilot Road GT 6 tires that I had put on before the trip feel amazing and gave me a really high level of confidence to push the bike in the twists and turns.  It helps that the road is all black top and in excellent condition.

There are lots of pullouts for overlooks and we stopped at a few.

Someone is having fun in their EV.

We did hit rain for a few miles but it cleared up just as the storm we hit earlier in the day had.

We arrived at the south end of Skyline Drive and pulled over for a break and another photo opportunity.

At this point, Skyline Drive turns into the Blue Ridge Parkway, a road that will take us south for about 500 miles.  We rode about 16 miles before turning off for a short ride to our campground for the night.  We are staying at Devil’s Backbone Campground and Brewery which is an event center with a large stage, a restaurant, a brewpub, an outdoor bar, a large RV park, and, over in the trees, tent camping.  

We got out tents up, stowed our gear, and then went to check out the brewpub.  They have a pretty large selection of beers and lots of food options as well.  We tried a couple beers with their pub nachos and some fries.  All were very good.

We decided to have our regular meal back at the campground and prepped our backpacker food by headlamps.

I had my iPad with me and fiddled with pulling video off my card from the dashcam and getting it into iMovie to edit so I could put clips on here.  I work a bit to remember the workflow from when I last did this a year ago.  Here is one from today’s ride that gives a taste of what that road was like.

It was a 335 mile day.