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Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 22:49:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Josh J Fielek <jjf@inri.com>
Subject: RCRV -- The Duc Walk (Long as heck)
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A long time ago in a gal... oops, wrong list.

I have just returned from a Nirvanesque weekend. Nice roads, nice
people, nice bikes.

It all started with a simple proposition -- go to the Right Coast
Ride. The tools were at hand -- a pre-planned thursday and friday off
from work, a well oiled, and now smoothly running Ducati, and an eye
for adventure.

Circumstances developed that allowed a travelling student to join the
travelling circus -- by dint of good timing and a little luck, Gilles
Campagnolo (sp?) was able to join me here in Newport News and for the
RCR.

I decided to take Wednesday off of work as well, so that I could pack
in a leisurely manner and prep the bike with no real time pressure. I
had to dash into work for a few hours after all, for our semi-annual
reviews and some last minute panic programming to ensure that a buggy
library that we sourced for some code might actually work in the
manner intended (I've spent more time fixing the damn library than
doing any real work lately...), and then I was off, free for 4.5 days.

Gilles was due at about 1500 from the Staunton area of Virginia, and I
was to meet him after he called, and guide him to the house. I bided
my time gathering the various articles of clothing and stuff that I'd
need for the trip, and digging out the various bits of soft luggage
that I'd use.

Gilles called about 1530, and I chuffed out on the BMW to fetch
him. Gilles was not to be found. Hmmm... time to explore. I back
tracked and didn't see any sign of him. I asked a few locals if they'd
seem a fellow on a bike loaded for bear, but they were as useful as
tinwhistles in a snake pit. Eventually I stumbled across him. It
turned out that he'd gone right instead of left at the bottom of the
exit from the freeway, and ended up at another convenience store by
the same name. We headed to the house.

We piddled with the bikes, changing the oil and the filters on his
bike. The air filter on his VF700C Magna was a snap; the oil filter
had been installed by a hyperthyroid gorilla with an attitude
problem. I literally folded one of my longer screwdrivers in half
trying to twist the damn thing off. Fortunately, it's a Craftsman, and
easily replaced. Finishing the task took less than ten minutes;
removing the filter ate up an hour and a quarter. That task finished,
I checked the synch on the carbs; it was within an inch for every
cylinder; close enough for now.

The following morning, we finally rolled from the house at around
1000. We went immediately to the battlefield at Yorktown, then to a
local shop, looking for gloves for Gilles. No luck, so we wandered off
to Williamsburg. We wandered about the colonial section a bit and
grabbed lunch. Gilles went off to photograph some of the area while I
sat on a nice bench and sweated in the sun. The stich piled on the
ground elicited many strange looks, but no remarks. Gilles returned and
we departed the area at about 1500. I'd travelled a total of 16 miles
by then...

We headed Northwest, through a back handed route that takes you up to
just south of Fredericksburg, past the Stonewall Jackson Shrine (we
stopped and visited, but the cabin in which Jackson died had just
closed for the night), and into the heart of Virginia. A few hours
later, and we were checking hotel rates in Front Royal. The prices
kept getting better, and Gilles managed to finangle an excellent rate
for the night. He's good at that haggling thing... The motel wasn't
exceptional, but it was nice enough for the night, and relatively
cheap.

We arose the following morning and had a great breakfast at the Fox
Diner, not fifty paces from the motel. The Fox was featured in one of
the Motorcyclist issues not to far back. Good, cheap, food. A real
joint, and when I told the cook/manager that, he grinned and
nodded. The Fox is a great joint, like the road houses of days long
gone, a place to sit and relax, listen to the local gossip, and BS
with the guy behind the counter. We took some photos of the bikes in
front of the Fox before we left; the fellow who runs the place wants
to fill a wall with photos of the bikes and the bikers that have
visited to Fox. I'll be personally delivering a set in a couple weeks.

We left Front Royal and headed north and east to Harper's Ferry. We
spent the morning wandering around the historical site, absorbing the
sites and the stories of the place. For those who don't know, Harper's
Ferry was a major US armory and weapons factory until the 1860s, and
it was also the site of John Brown's Rebellion, and a tough battle
wherein the Union was forced to surrender over 12000 men to the
Confederacy when they were trapped down in the town, under the guns of
Stonewall Jackson, who had secured the bluffs overlooking the town.

We left Harper's Ferry and hunted up a lunch joint, finally settling
on a place painted like a huge American flag. Good food, a good
waiter, and then onto the road. We headed next to Antietam, the place
where the Confederacy might have been crushed, had not Little Mac been
an incompetent. Several times during the assault, the Confederates
were battered, and had Little Mac been on the job, he could have
snapped the lines and broken Lee's Army of Virginia. But Lee escaped,
with a badly injured force, and retreated into Virginia. The battle
was a tactical draw; neither side won the field, but it was a critical
success for the North, because it stopped Lee's advance on Washington,
and it gave Lincoln the political impetus to set forth the
Emancipation Proclomation. The battle also effectively prevented
France and England from recognizing the south as an independent
nation.

From the battlefield, we headed further North and East to Thurmont,
site of this years RCR. We arrived earlier enough so that only 20
bikes or so were present. We parked, unloaded, and gabbed. The people
continued to trickle in as we watched and socialized.

By roughly six thirty, enough people had arrived that we all up and
took off for dinner. The original plans were to assail the popular
"Family" restaurant that we attempted to assault last year, but again,
the load of denizens stretched the restaurants capabilities beyond the
normal, and a dozen or so of us split and went to the "Cosy"
restaurant down the road. Much food was consumed. The buffet was
excellent. About 2100, we split back to the encampment and socialized
into the night. 

The following morning was greeted with a potentially gorgeous day. Not
too hot, not too cool, and not a cloud in the sky. Ian Howie had
supplied the excellent morning brew, some kind soul provided bagels,
and Mr. Bill raided the local Dunkin' Donuts and secured sixteen boxes
of fat pills. Food was consumed, people socialized (not medically),
and eventually teamed up for rides. I sort of volunteered to elad a
moderately fast group. We started with about a dozen folks, and ended
up "acquiring" Jim Bessette as our sweep. We followed the most
excellent route put together by John Cadis, and rode forth. I had
brought the Ducati for just such a momentous event ;-)

We rolled out first for the quick riders, tired of waiting for the
rest of the crowd to rouse themselve into a riding frenzy. Off into
the hills we went, and what nice hills they are. John had put together
a good mix of roads, from fast, smooth sweepers to gnarly back roads
with the patented Pennsylvania Rumbletop, a rough variety of asphalt
that is lain over a difficult trend of many years, one lump at a
time. Most of the roads were simply superb, with only a smattering of
gravel and the occasional furry speedbump to slow the forces of the
Red Brigade.

Yes, the Red Brigade... Of the dozen or so bikes that we had in this
group, eight were red, or primarily red. I don't recall everyone's
names, because I really suck when it comes to remembering names, but
we had a good group of riders. We had myself on the red 906, Brian
Casper on the Lovely and Voluptuous Buell S2, two red Bandits, a red
94 type VFR, Dave on his red 96 Ethiopian CBR900Harrar (coffee
joke...), a couple red Hawks, a VX800 in deep blue, a Goof2, and
another bike that escapes my weakened and feeble memory. We also
acquired Jim Bessette as sweep rider when we had an incident early in
the day.

In essence, one of our troop target fixated on the outside edge of a
hairpin, got scared (who wouldn't?), locked up the front, and dropped
the bike into the ditch. He (Tom, if I recall correctly) was pitched
forward off the bike and performed a 9.7 difficulty faceplant into the
side of the hill. Fortunately, the damage to the bike was cosmetic,
and Tom was uninjured, his Aerostich doing the job admirably, and his
full face helmet absorbing the shock, scratching up the sheild in the
process. We (well, others of the Red Brigade; I was at the bottom of
the mountain when I finally was able to turn around and give a check
of more than the fellow immediately behind me, and I didn't reach the
scene until Tom was pretty much over the adrenaline rush) picked up
the peices and put things in working order.

As we were sifting through the wreckage and sorting things out, the
larger element, led by John himself, rolled through. It was kind of
nice to have a confirmation of the route, but I would have preferred
to have not had to stop at all, especially for this reason (duh!). Jim
Bessette kindly hooked up with us and ran sweep on his monster
GS-PD. Thanks Jim.

Also, a lot of Credit goes to Tom for getting back in the saddle and
riding out the day. Crashing can make a rider really skittish for a
couple days after the accident, but Tom got back in the saddle and
rolled onward. Good on ya, Tom.

We managed to get rolling again, and followed to route through to
lunch without further incident. Lunch was held at the Treet Top
restaurant at the Coolfont resort, and I must say that that was quite
possibly the worst service I've ever had the displeasure to
experience. I didn't think to raise a little hell with the manager,
but i should have. 20/20 hindsight...

After lunch we lost Brian, due to the potential illness of another
rider; Brian, humanitarian that he is, wanted to make sure that Eddie
got back to wetmar safely (Eddie did). Tom initially wanted to hook up
with a somewhat slower group, but since we looked to be first out, he
re-enlisted with the Red Brigade.

We took off. I'd polled folks about gas so we could be certain that
we'd stop in time for fuel. We ran about 25 miles or so and
stopped. Everyone filled up, and the main group again trundled by, as
did a bunch of Triangle Denizens, and Martyn, astride his Guzzi,
looking amazingly like gramps as he squeezed himself down behind the
windscreen. BTW, nice bike, Martyn.

The rest of the afternoon was spent strafing apexes. A few notes --

1. Harper's Ferry road is a big time giggle inducer.
2. Dogs suck. We passed an assault team of 'em. They saw me, dashed
out, I sped past, they they went for the folks behind me. 
3. Single lane underpasses suck when the oncoming vehicle is a
front-end loader.
4. The 906 has phenomenal front end feedback. I rolled over a bit of
squashed road kill and could tell the species (chipmunk), sex (male),
and its last supper (sunflower seeds). There is never any doubt as to
what the front end is doing.
5. Cops tend to flock. At least, those that are under 95 years of
age. When we were down along a river, near one of the Chesapeake and
Ohio Canal Park areas, TWO federal rangers showed up. One was
preceding us, and as we neared our turnoff point, another showed up.
6. Jim Bessette makes the best sweep rider. He's tall enough to spot
from a distance and the R100GS-PD stands out.
7. Back roads are great. And the directions were fine. Some of the
roads weren't marked worth a damn, though :-o
8. There is a sign in one of the towns that read "SLOW INDUSTRIAL
AREA." Behind it was an empty and well worn factory area. Do all
Northern states advertise their economic problems like that? ;-)

All in all, it was a great ride. We returned to Westmar and
relaxed. We'd gotten back at about 1630, with plenty of time to cool
down and relaxed. We assaulted the cool drinks and just spent some
steam. Before too long, others were returning, and we all sat, gabbed,
and bench-raced. Then we ate, drank, and benchraced. Then we drank and
benchraced. And so on...

Before it got dark, We gathered everyone together for the group photo
(no tripod this year; I'm not in any of them... that alone probably
saved hundreds of dollars in camera equipment) Grant obligingly took
photos of my butt while I took photos of everyone else.

Then the awards were given. I'll leave that to someone else; suffice
it to say they were fitting, and well deserved. Muffy was
appropriately passed along to Mr. Bill. The festivities continued on
into the night.

Gilles had crashed during the rides saturday, dropping the bike at a
stop after missing a "stop ahead" sign. He broke the headlight shell;
the most serious damage to the bike. So we decided that he'd follow me
back to Newport News on Sunday and see about getting things fixed up
on Monday.

Unfortunately, the clutch on the Ducati had decided to go soft
overnight, and wasn't disengaging correctly. I got moving okay, but
ended up stopping shortly thereafter and bled the clutch, which fixed
the problem. I'll be checking the seals this week to see if there's
any leakage.

With the clutch sorted out, we rolled south on Maryland 17 and down
and across the border into Virginia. I tried to keep to backroads and
avoid the US highways or the larger roads. I did so sucessfully. The
only problem with the ride back was that i was running a 50 mph
average pace (including stops) and gilles was running a 35 mph
average. I suspect that the crash had spooked him somewhat, which is
not surprising. He should settle out after a couple days.

We finally made it to Newport News at roughly 1700, about an hour and
a half after I had planned. We stowed gear and ordered Pizza. I also
related the saga of the weekend to Melanie, since she had missed out
on the entire shebang due to an intensive calculus course. Eventually,
Melanie informed me of several phone calls from my immediate boss, and
I called him to get the scoop.

It ended up that I needed to go into work and get some things done, so
I went into work at about 2100, finally getting to bed at about
0130. I roe late the next morning (about 0700) and took Gilles to
Scorpion Engineering, a reliable, not too expensive local shop. I
related the tale to Chuck, who basically told me that he'd take care
of it. As I was saying good-bye to Gilles, a severe gravity flux struck
the BMW and dragged it bodily to the ground. Being a G/S, it was
undamaged. Well, not totally... the blue krylon on the right ammo can
was scratched! (Oh! horrors!)

I left Gilles in Chuck's care and went to do some more work at
work. Later in the day, Chuck called me to let me know that Gilles was
on his way, with a patched bike.

And so ended the RCR weekend.


J. Fielek

-- 
Joshua J. Fielek DoD#385 AMA#517381 WERA#968  The Garage of Xanadu:
Inter-National Research Institute, Inc. 1981 R80G/S-PD* 1990 906 Paso(Ayeka)* 
jjf@inri.com                            1975 RD350      1990 EX500(cold backup)
What can I say... I'm a moto-slut.      1988 EX500*     198X Aero 80(Turbo)*