Saturday, The rain had stopped sometime in the middle of the night. There was still a little wetness out and about. We were up and ready to roll by 7:30, in time for the ‘Riders Meeting’:
There were two roads that focused on twisties, puckered sphincter, and puckered sphincter south. We elected to take the latter. A lot of folks were looking for a more leisure ride, so the three of us took off as a group.
Unfortunately my eye flared up pretty badly. I still suffer from recurrent erosions, from a dirt bike incident over 6 years ago. Usually I just need to lay down horizontally and keep that eye closed for 5 to 10 minutes but I couldn’t get it to stop hurting or watering. We took off anyway. It had acted up a little bit on Friday, but by the time we got down the highway to the good roads it had stopped. I figured the same would happen today. It didn’t, so we had to stop for a while near this dam.
Did I mention it was cold? Friggin cold. But unlike some folks, I didn’t leave my electric gear at home, so I was ok for the most part.
After the stop at the dam we continued south on 20 through Pipestem through Rocky Gap
and west on 61. We took a side road up and over a mountain (623), I highly recommend this road. It’s as good as ‘the gap’ just as twisty and freshly paved. In the middle of Burkes Garden you’ll find a nice country store. The lady running it won’t win any prices for hospitality though.
We showed up there at 10:30am. Inside there was a sign that said ask about sandwiches…
So I asked “What kind of sandwiches do you have?”, her response was “Nothing until 11am”. Well crap…
About 8 bikes passed us when we were dealing with my eye at the dam. We caught up with them at the store. Most of them bought something there, either a drink or a snack or something. She seriously looked and acted like we were messing up her whole day by visiting the store.
I asked Dad and Joe what they wanted to do? We could get something to eat down the road in the next town. When she heard this she said she could fix us a sandwich, if we wanted cold cuts.
Turned out the chicken salad was really good.
It was still a bit chilly but the views were absolutely stunning.
From there we headed back out 623, and again west on 61 to 16 through Hungry Mother State Park, then east on 11 to 52.
52 was absolutely amazing. It followed a creek, most of the road was covered and some of the trees had already started to turn.
While it wasn’t a highly technical road, it was an excellent ride! From there back through Rocky Gap, out 420 to 219 and back to Lynchburg. A nice 320 mile day.
The EOM Dinner was Saturday evening. The food was outstanding for a buffet, and as always there was a plethora of door prizes.
Sunday started out much the same except the fog was thick and seemed to be hanging around. Sundays ride would the ‘puckered north route’ which was really the ‘west’ route, but I digress.
We started off with breakfast at Bob Evans to give the fog some time to burn off. This time we picked up a 4th rider, Duane from Cleveland. He thought for sure the Bengals would beat up the Browns but I kept explaining to him that this is exactly the kind of the game that the Bengals will blow. And apparently that’s exactly what they did.
Again we headed out 64 West to Sandstone, south on 20, but West on 3 to 19. Then 19 to 16 North.
We stopped in ‘War, WV” for lunch at this little hole in the wall called The Lunch Box Cafe. Calling it a hole in the wall is being kind.
We were sent there by a couple riders who had eaten there the day before and recommend it for the ambiance.
They were lucky, they got to sit in the main dinning area at the bar. (Which only sat 4 people) Since those spots were taken the ‘cleared a booth for us in the dining room’ aka storage/closet.
The menu was literally scribbled on paper.
Apparently they didn’t know much about them com-pute-tors.
The food wasn’t bad for what it was. Joe wasn’t impressed at all. That’s because he didn’t get bacon 🙂
It’s worth a trip if you’re in the area for the humor alone.
The front area was this big:
Literally 4 seats and that’s it. I’m standing in the corner to get a photo of the whole thing.
Out of War we continued north on 19 to 99, then east on 64 back to the hotel. Another 300 mile day of riding really good roads.
At the end of the day the EOM crew were doing Throttle body syncs. For the most part it looked like the blind leading the blind. There was a lot of confusion happening. I know one guy’s AE didn’t run so well after being ‘tinkered’ with. I’m not saying doing a TBS is a bad thing, but doing it in a parking lot with 82 other folks some of who may not actually know what they are doing isn’t a good thing.
The ride back on Monday was fairly uneventful. We took the shortest route this time which included mostly highway.
It was another near perfect day and the perfect ending to a near perfect trip. (Had it not rained Friday it would have been perfect).
Till next year…
