Return-Path: From: east@big.att.com Date: Fri, 7 Jul 95 14:36:30 EDT Reply-To: east@big.att.com Sender: east@big.att.com Original-From: sew@feds17.CV.COM (Stephen Woodbridge x5290) To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: RCR and Deal's Gap Trip Report (Long) X-Comment: East Coast Motorcyclists Mailing List Well I just got back from the RCR ( for those of you that don't know, this is the Right Coast Ride (RCR) and is an east coast of the US rally which had about 95 people attend for a weekend of food, beer, rides, and comradery) and my weeks tour down to Deal's Gap and back. Since I just posted an eight page trip report from my trip to Germany I think I will keep this one shorter. My trip started on June 22, leaving the Greater Boston Area with Mark Holbrook, Dan Guilderson and Dane Walther on Mark's most excellent route south to the RCR IV. Other than rain as we headed in Thurmont, MD and having to wait for sometime while the rescue squad pulled a cage out of a ravine on the road into Camp West Mar, we only had to deal with poorly marked roads and idiots that offered useless directions that frustrated Mark's attempt to stay on back roads, but he persisted and we followed willingly(?) and I for one had a great ride. I bought new gloves before I left and the rain turned my hands into works of art in black and red! I was disappointed that they didn't have an award for the best/worst pair of glove hands. Back roads are great, but it is very hard to estimate the time it will take to get from A to B, because often you end up going thru D, E, and F and sometimes X, Y and Z also while trying to get to B from A. (Hope that isn't to complicated to follow :-) On the other hand, it is just this fact that makes back roads so much fun. But I guess you all knew that already. Mark named me "Mr. Glue", on this trip. I'm not sure this was a compliment :) I like leading, but I am very happy to fly wingman (ie: #2 in a group) if I trust the leader so 98% of the time Mark made a move or a pass, I was there in his rear view! It was a good ride and a good pace. The RCR was great! This was my first and it was fun meeting so many people that I have seen post in the past. Thanks to: Jim Bessette for putting it all together, Jon kadis for a great ride on Saturday and for PoPs in his supporting role, Ian Howie for the coffee that made the mornings (period), and to everyone that showed up for making it a great event. Well Sunday came too soon and the crew I rode down with was headed in different directions (I guess noone really wanted to ride with Mark again :) and I was headed south. After much talk with south-bound groups, a friend of mine (yeah, you didn't know I had any!!) and Mark Hodgeson decided to head south to Deal's Gap. We didn't get off before the rain, in fact, we headed into the storms that flooded most of Virginia and West Virginia, so we had rain every day for the next 4 days. But on the UP side it was mostly localized and was not continuous. My friend Anne, who joined us, had lived in NC in the past and knew her way about, set off leading our threesome south, after I retraced Jon's route to Berkley Springs. So here is our route from Berkely Springs and back to Berkely Springs (I think this falls under the catagory of Deja vu all over again or maybe a long way to get where you already are) Oh yeah, Berkely Springs is in West Virginia: Sunday: 9 S, 29 S, 50 W, 28 S to Dunmore, 92 S to Alvon, back road to Anthony and Vago, 219 S thru Lewisburg, 63 W, 12 S to Hinton and 20 S to Pipestem camp ground on Bluestone Lake and Camped the night. We made good time on these roads, but the back road bug got the better of me and I took over the lead to Anthony and Vago. FIND this road! it is waay cool. Monday: 20 S to Princeton (breakfast), 77 S exit after tunnel, 52 S, 42 S to Nebo, back road to Sugar Grove to pick up 16 S to Troutdale, back road to Konnarock to pick up 58 E, back road thru Taylors Valley to 91 S at VA/TN border, 421 N/W, 67S, 321W, 19E S, 173 S/W thru Erwin, 107 S to Houston Valley Camp Ground in the Cherokee Nat'l Forest. I had no idea of how far it was to Deal's Gap (it didn't look the far on the map!) and while yesterday's roads were scenic and fast, I was itching for more back roads. These roads were outstanding. One was a mountain pass road that was 1-1.5 lanes wide hairpin turns that were carved out of the rock face so you could NOT see around the curve for on coming traffic, which you would NOT want to meet (there was no place to pass) so Sounding the horn and listening for a response became standard practice. At the top of the pass was some nice views, but the sky was very hazy. All these were great, but one had about 1-2 miles of gravel road, but we had no problems with it. The camp was primative (ie: no showers, in fact we had it to ourselves). High temps and humidity two days in a row and no showers! Now we were Biker Scum for REAL! Tuesday: 107 S to Newport, 73 S thru Gatlinburg to Townsend, 321 W to the Foot Hills Parkway, 129 S thru Deal's Gap, 28 S/E, 19 N/E, Blue Ridge Parkway and camped just north of 276. Gatlinburg sucked, it was hot and stop and go traffic for 30 mins, but the rest was very nice. Mark had come thru Deal's Gap on his way north to the RCR and grabed the lead as his recognized where we were and we swooped south on 129 thru Deal's Gap. These corners are really tight, so I decide that it might be appropriate to hang off a little, but I find that there isn't enough space between the bike and road to squeeze me into it. Most of the right hand corners we have good visibility to potential on coming traffic and Mark starts using both lanes for the tight ones. Hey, it works for me too! Hey that isn't Anne in my rearview! Ok, wave him by in a straight, damn guy on a dual sport just blows by like I'm parked. Damn, he has a friend, well I guess I'm just being too conservative, a little more throttle, the VFR pulls away, now that's more like it! Shit it getting reeeeal twisty again, oops there goes the dual sport right around me in the twisty stuff and he's gone from sight. Lights in my rear view again, shit what was that rocket (a CBR 900 RR) flip-flip-flip-flip and I don't see him again till I get to the bottom. 318 curves in 11 miles gives you plenty of time to get warmed up and build a rhythm to the curves. I wanted to unload all the gear and lugage and go do it again, be it was tiring and would have meant going up and back, so we decided to get some fluids at the Crossroads of Time Motel and now we can say "Been There, Done That, and Got the TeeShirt!" Well Mark left Anne and me after Deal's Gap, he had to make the torturous ride back thru the gap and continued south to visit relatives. And the two of us, continued on rt 28 which was very twisty, but felt straight in comparison to Deal's Gap. After Deal's Gap, I was so wired and confident in me and the bike I was rippin' thru the curves on 28 and the BRP. In fact I was shreading the rubber right off my tires! Literally! For stock tires the Dunlop 202D's were damn good rubber. We had a great trout dinner at the local resturant, but no showers again, maybe that was why they didn't seat anyone near us! 8=0 Wednesday: Blue Ridge Parkway to Roanoake, VA and got a hotel for the night. The morning was great more fast cornering and lots of great view and not a sign the the dreaded Federal Police. But by 2pm it was raining off and on, and by 4pm raining hard only to be interupted by much harder rain and thunder and lightning!! I kept getting water INSIDE my visor to the point that I could not see and had to stop to clear things up and I was soaked thru and thru. Did I mention how wet it was today? It was really wet! We took refuge from the down pour at one point in a chicken house at some historical building. It was a good thing we had our helmets on because the buikding was not tall enough to stand upright without getting roofing nails in your head! When I got back to my bike I noticed I had worn the rear tire down to the cords! We got to Roanoake and I had had enough. I wanted a shower, to be in dry clothes, a warm meal and a dry bed, We found a hotel just off the BRP and parked our bikes under the covered walk way and hung all manner of articles from any and everything that we could find in the room to dry. And ordered Pizza to be delivered to the room. Hey!, it was raining outside, there was no way I was gona get back on the bike to go to eat!! Thurday: To Honda Dealer in Salem, VA to get new tires!, 81 N, 220 N, 43 S, back road to Lexington, 251 to Lexington, 60 to 64, back road to Rockbridge Baths is flooded, 64 N/W, 42 N/E, 39 N/W to McClung, back road thru Williamsville, Clover Cr., to McDowell, 250 N/W, 220 N/E, back road to Blue Grass, (had intended to go to Cherry Cove but ended up back on 250), 250 N/W, 28 N, waay back road to Spruce Knob and thru Whitmer, Job to 55 S/E to Senaca Rocks and camped the night. While at the Honda dealer getting SportMax II put on front and rear, I also got a set of Motoline rain over mits and over boots. Wish I had done this before I had left MA. But it worked, now that I had more appropriate rain gear the sun came out for the rest of the day. I scrubbed in the tires by riding circles and eights in a local parking lot to the amusement of on lookers. I the darnest time trying to get on good roads north of Roanoake, because most of the back roads were under water or had been washed away. The ones list above were all very nice and I strongly recommend them to anyone in the area with the notable exception of the waay back road to Spruce Knob and thru Whitmer which turned out to be 32 miles of dirt tracks and switch backs which were OK, but more than I would have done on dirt with a fully loaded sport bike. The side trip thru Blue Grass was one of the most beautiful little valleys I have ever seen. Friday: 28 N, 42 N, back road to Arthur, Medley, Williamsport, Burlington, 50 E, back road Headsville, cross 46, continue to 53 thru Cresaptown, here I meant to pick up PA 96 N, but got lost and took 68 E, 51 E along the Potomac River to Old Town, crossed low water bridge to Green Spr. and tried to follow the south side of the Potomac to Okononko, but after 14 miles of dirt roads and a dead end I took a back road to Springfield to Points Higginsville to Slanesville, 29 N to Paw Paw, and 9 N back to Berkely Springs where I had lunch at the same place that we ate on Jon's RCR ride. I then headed north on back roads until dark and then took slabs up to Princeton, NJ and spent the night with my parents. The rest of the trip is not very note worthy, except for 1) NJ 519 is a great road and I must have been flying because stopped to get a drink only to find that I was 6 miles from NY and I couldn't believe it and 2) the horrible ordeal I suffered thru by destroying my right front caliper mounting bracket with my disc lock :(. I traveled 3400+ miles without any problems, but when I went to leave my brother place in VT, I tried to ride off with the disk lock on and BROKE the right caliper mounting bracket. Ouchh! I had to remove the caliper and seal the the hydralic line and limped home on one front disk. Parts are ordered and should be at my place on Friday, so barring any additional problems I will be going to CLASS on Tuesday July 11th. Other random thoughts and experiences: I hit the right peg feeler! sometime on Thursday or Friday, which was a surprise as I have never done that before, So I guess I am getting the bike over a little in the curves. I also found that I can do fast right-left or vica versa lean transitions by counter leaning if there is such a term. Basically, you throw the bike to the right and lean your body to the left, then reverse. I think this is fast and requires little force because you are not trying to move the CG (center of gravity) of the system which would require effort. It's not coutersteering, but couterleaning. I noticed on the VFR that if I take both hands off the handle bars that I get a head shake. I first thought this was due to the wear pattern on the front tire, but it was there on the new tires also. Yeah, yeah, I know don't take my hands off the bars!! but that is not the point, why is it there and what is causing it? Oh yeah, I don't have a throttle lock so the bike is always decelerating when this happens. It will also happen is a hold the bars extremely loose so I don't dampen the shake. I like the SportMax II the front has a nice round profile which makes for very smooth transitions into corners especially at slow speeds. Well enough already, I did say I would keep this shorter than my germany trip report. -Steve ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stephen Woodbridge 95 VFR750 Red HOT! (( Computervision Corp 79 KZ750B Project )) Dangerous 100 Crosby Drive MS:21-108 84 GPz750 (for sale) (( Curves Bedford, MA 01730 DoD# 1480, KotT )) Ahead AMA# 398523 (( Standard disclaimer - these are my own ideas, views, etc. ))