Great Motorcycle Ride Today

Three BMW GSes, we left the meet place and did 200 miles in three states. 8;30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It was FANTASTIC. I was the leader, and said "let's go to Harper's Ferry, WVA (so beautiful there, site of John Brown's raid and kickoff to the Civil War). I programmed the Zumo GPS to avoid all interstates, U-turns, toll roads, highways and traffic, then set it to 'shortest distance' rather than 'fastest time". I left the "avoid dirt roads' UN-checked. When you do that, you get the most marvelous routes that take you on spectacular backwater roads, and in this part of the country its easy to be back in 1860 just a few miles out of suburbia.

We went through four national parks, a goat path along the Potomac River with plenty of deep water/mud holes, and did the whole gambit from tight mountain road switchbacks to dirt to hi-speed sweepers. Great Day, good fun. After Harper's Ferry, we went to the Antietam Battlefield and spend half an hour there standing on the hill known as Artillery Hell. What a meatgrinder in the most beautiful of places. How could 23,000 Americans have been killed, or wounded on this beautiful spot in 1862? TWENTY - THREE THOUSAND. It boggles the mind. The bloodiest day in American History to date. I can't even imagine that. 10x that killed at Pearl Harbor. 10x that perished on 09/11. Sobering.

We got dirty. My Anakee tires are damn near wore out, time to put the new ones on. Gawd, I love this bike. It can do ANYTHING you ask of it. Road Race, High Speed Cruise, Dirt Roads, Splash Mudholes, or just poke around.

I took particular glee pulling up next to the polished-within-an-inch-of-their-chrome-lives Harleys today at the BBQ joint on the muddy GSes, splash marks all over the engine and the rear tire filthy. We pull up next to the yellow Fat Boy, the gleaming Sun Glo Red Street Glide and the shiny sliver Road King and our bikes are creaking as they shut off, some wisps of steam coming off the engine from the water still in the fins. We're dirty, sweaty....the HD boys look splendid under the shade in their spotless white t-shirts and shoe-polished vests. Magazine models they are. We're gross and nasty.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. HA!

Buy some more stickers with cute sayings for your helmet, lifestyle Moes, then take another parade lap around town with your American flag on the back. Make noise with your throttle. Those guys off in the distance, up on other side of the railroad tracks kickin up plumes of dust as we disappear down the fireroad in the woods, dem's those BMW boys that stopped for the restroom and some Gatorade and they were off again.....

Duane <former Harley owner, nothing like a reformed smoker, eh?

That does sounds like a wonderful ride w/ some great sights & scenery. If I weren't so chicken I would probably love biking! I have a feeling I would be more of a lazy Harley rider though. :/

I can't get me wife to go with me....she misses out so much! I suppose we could get a convertible car, but then she'd want all the windows rolled up when the top was down, which would make me nuts....

You get a totally different feel on a bike rather than a car. A motorcycle is like flying on the ground....as if you were a bird dipping / diving / leaning into turns. In cars, you just turn the wheel and it goes, the skill levels required to do it well are not very high.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........even in a Ferrari.

There are more smells on a motorcycle - guess that's because your nose is front and center and there is no sheet metal to direct the breeze around you. We were in Ohio last year, just a few miles beyond the West Virginia border on the little backroads (as always!) and came over a crest of this little road - and there were wildflowers everywhere, morning sunlight glinting off their pedals. It was FANTASTIC. Millions of wildflowers, the scent stronger than the perfume counter at Nordstroms, and thousands of butterflies flitting to and fro. It went on like that for nearly 10 miles. I should have stopped and taken a photo, but that never would be able to convey the warm early morning sun and the feel of riding through a flower meadow in The Wizard of Oz. Great stuff.