luvtoride
My Indian name is "Pants On Fire"
On the afternoon of Thursday, December 27, 2006 I sent an email to my friend Jim Meadows (spklbuk) telling him of my tentative plans for an adventure. After emailing & a phone call from him I positively confirmed what I had been contemplating for a few hours… I made last minute plans to ride out to his farm in WV Friday to spend time in the mountains riding Friday/Saturday/Sunday.
Thursday night was spent packing & making plans for how I would bungee a spare tire to my Givi rack with the top box mounted. I’ve managed a set of tires bungeed to the rack a couple of times but the top box was always safe & sound inside my house. The fact is that I desperately needed a new rear tire mounted before I hit the road to “almost heaven” & bungeeing the tire to the bike w/ the top box, which actually turned out well, concerned me.
Friday morning came, I dragged myself from my warm & cozy bed & got showered & ready to go to work. I had to do the minor drudgery of showing up to be sure that the previous day’s submittal to a client went smoothly.
After confirming the work stuff, I was off to my friendly neighborhood MC shop to get my tire mounted. After a small amount of pacing the concrete slab outside the shop, my bike was sitting in the parking lot waiting for me to hit the semi-open road. I say semi-open because after all, I do live in Norfolk, VA. There is traffic almost everywhere.
But it was fairly early… 11:16am to be exact. Hey, I’m going to miss the “people going to lunch” traffic!
Off I go on my adventure! I’ll save you the boring details of my hum drum ride out to meet Jim. I would like to tell you a story about what I’ll call “A Taste of West Virginia”, though.
MY ADVENTURE REALLY BEGINS:
Jim rode out to meet me somewhere on Rte 60 in Virginia. We arrived at his farmhouse in WV a little after 7:00 Friday evening. Let me tell you something, at 2800 plus feet… Jim’s backyard is “literally” in the mountains. I mean, just the 2 mile ride off of 64 to his farm has twisties! & you get to drive uphill and downhill in gravel to get into his garage.
There at the door to the little farmhouse is Jim’s wife, Creta offering greetings and hospitality.
Creta is great! She had stoked the hell out of the woodburning stove to be sure the house was good and warm for us when we got there since it was in the high 30’s when Jim & I arrived at the farm. Creta also had dinner just about ready to go on the table.
Now, my story is not only about the roads that we traveled… but also of the indigenous food & drink that I experienced on that satisfying weekend.
Once in the house & ungeared we cracked open a couple of beers, kicked back & talked of things “EOM” until dinner was on the table.
DINNER TIME!
Creta had fixed us some wild turkey, gravy, apple sauce, bread & corn for dinner. Fresh from their jarring cellar were the apple sauce & corn. The wild gobbler had met its demise at the hands of my host, Jim. Mmmmm… all was delish!
After dinner we decided to go outside & see what we could see… Jim spotlighted 5-7 deer in his mountainous backyard (which is actually 42 acres). None of us were really sure how many deer were there. All we could see was their eyes.
Actually over the course of the weekend I had a chance to devour many fresh items. Besides the wild turkey, corn & apple sauce, I tried deer steak that had met its demise & was cleaned & cooked by Jim. And the thing I was most surprised about??? Shhhhhhhh… the moonshine… gen-u-ine WV corn mash. Just a few sips of that & I was done! In more than one way. After all I was riding in the morning. As far as I can figure this might have something to do with not being able to count the deer.
Saturday morning I’m sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. I’m looking out the window to see what I can see & there goes a deer slowly loping across the field in his yard! Jim says there were probably more out there. I just didn’t look hard enough.
Now, to the riding:
Saturday morning… 7:30am… the thermometer hanging from the garage is showing 20 degrees. Jim assures me that once the sun peaks over the horizon the temps will rise rapidly.
I found that statement to be true. I still don’t think that we left his garage until almost 11:00 am, though.
Off we go… a quick jump onto 64 to Route 20 south. From there it was a fairly short ride to Rte 3. Just as we were turning onto Rte 3 Jim pulls over & proclaims to me that Rte 3 is best experienced with nobody riding in front of ya’. Hahahaha!!! It didn’t take much prodding to get me to take the lead & careen down Rte 3. What a good road!
Trouble with it is it’s a fairly short ride… but long enough to get into a groove. From there we cruised 19 south into Princeton. 19 is also a good road! I just knew there was something to this Wild and Wonderful West Virginia stuff!
We stopped for a gas/drink break & struck up a conversation with some locals who had asked about our bikes. It turns out that the man used to have a BMW 1150RT & he was wondering how we liked our Yamahas. Now, what do you think we told him? Of course we said…….
“WE LOVEEEEE OUR BIKES!!!!”
He directed us to a place that we had no intention of going, but the ride will be saved in the memory banks to be scouted another day.
Again we are off to find a certain cycle shop by the name of Mercer County Chopper. MCC had the coolest motorcycle t-shirts! One of which I now own. It will be shared at a later date.
From MCC we headed out on 19, passed Bluefield College & rode into VA, jumped on 460 towards Tazewell & picked up Rte 16 in Cedar Bluff, VA.
Again, Jim stated that 16 is a road best experienced with nobody in front of ya’… so once again without much prodding, I took the lead to fully take in this road.
Man oh man… are you guys gonna’ cream your jeans! Oh, woopsy! Guys don’t do that, do they? Well, I did! This road is motorcycle heaven! There were lots of small towns, coal processing plants & curves. Some very historic towns & some that were obviously poor communities… but the roads!!! I’m tellin’ ya’… “motorcycle heaven”. The roads were all in great to decent shape & twisties galore!
I'd like to share a couple of pictures of Rte 16. I'm not the best photog & also wasn't the prettiest weather day ever so... here they are:
From sweepers to tight stuff to switchbacks. It can all be found on 16. Because of the time of the year that we rode it there was what Jim referred to as “slurry”… crap on the road that the coal trucks, etc have dropped. Mix in a little dampness like the day had presented & you’ve got some pretty slippery goo. We had to take it super easy on SEVERAL tight areas due to this goo. Jim explained that the north side of the mountain doesn’t get extended sun this time of the year & didn’t dry out well. He assures me that this problem doesn’t exist the time of the year that we’ll be riding the area.
We stopped for a break. It’s getting sort of late in the afternoon & Jim mentions making a stop for lunch. After a short discussion we decided to do some snacking at our rest stops & forego lunch so that we could finish our route before dark.
We left the rest stop & headed back out on 16 to 85 north. Jim was hell bent on taking me on one more of his favorite rides… so we took 85 & made a right onto Rte 99. We were “dead on” headed for Bolt Mountain. As soon as you turn onto this road it has an ominous feel to it.
The road is very obviously cut directly & deeply through the mountain. The road is not cut into the side of the mountain. The road went “threw” the mountain. There are 100-150 foot high rock walls jutting up from the roadside on both sides. Jim tells me that in certain spots, this road will only receive about 2 hours of daylight even on the hottest sunny days. We also encountered some unmelted snow while up there.
After finishing the ride over Bolt Mountain we were pretty much done with the technical riding for the day. It was getting dark & we beat feet for Beckley on Rte 3 behind lots of other people who wanted to go to Beckley, too. We stopped for one last break & hit 64 to slab back to the farmhouse. We arrived there about 7ish.
Creta wasn’t home so Jim whipped up dinner. This dinner is where the deer meat came into play. By the way Jim… that was some good stuff!
Whooped from the plus/minus 300 mile twisty day ride, we hit the rack by 9:45.
Sunday morning Creta says to me… would you like pancakes for breakfast? I answer surely! I luvvv pancakes!
Being a smart ass I say… and how about some West Virginia Maple Syrup to go with them while you’re at it! Jim looks at me & laughs & tells me that “ you don’t know what you just asked for”
Well, I also had WV Maple Syrup made from gorgeous Sugar Maple trees for my pancakes on Sunday morning. Jim’s daddy & a couple of his friends had once upon a time had quite a knack for milking sugar maple trees.
This picture is from our fall colors ride. It shows Jim (splkbuk), Sheryl, Gary (fjrgary), Glen (ONEMOREBIKE) & a Sugar Maple tree in the background.
After breakfast I slowly got ready for departure home. After packing the bike, hugging Creta & bidding sweet little Shadow (Creta’s sweet little dog) a farewell, Jim & I were on our way out to explore.
Here's a picture of Shadow.
A few drops of rain had fallen & Jim left the route up to me… take the long twisty way out of the hills on Rte 311 & go home from Roanoke, VA on 460 or slab out on Rte 64 & take rte 60 from Buena Vista, over the Blue Ridge Parkway & out towards Richmond, VA. Which is also a nice ride.
I voted for the shorter of the two… the slab/rte 60 way was going to be the fastest & I really didn’t feel much like riding in any rain… which was a possibility on Rte 311.
Before I departed WV Jim took me on a tour of Lewisburg. Um, I don’t think that anyone will be disappointed. There are plenty of restaurants, taverns & fuel around the area. Also, it is a quaint historic town with beautiful & majestic old homes.
From there I headed home & I really don’t have much to tell you beyond the preceding words. My goal was to share my tasting experience with everyone.
Until EOM… be good everyone & rubber side down.
Heidi (luvtoride)
Thursday night was spent packing & making plans for how I would bungee a spare tire to my Givi rack with the top box mounted. I’ve managed a set of tires bungeed to the rack a couple of times but the top box was always safe & sound inside my house. The fact is that I desperately needed a new rear tire mounted before I hit the road to “almost heaven” & bungeeing the tire to the bike w/ the top box, which actually turned out well, concerned me.
Friday morning came, I dragged myself from my warm & cozy bed & got showered & ready to go to work. I had to do the minor drudgery of showing up to be sure that the previous day’s submittal to a client went smoothly.
After confirming the work stuff, I was off to my friendly neighborhood MC shop to get my tire mounted. After a small amount of pacing the concrete slab outside the shop, my bike was sitting in the parking lot waiting for me to hit the semi-open road. I say semi-open because after all, I do live in Norfolk, VA. There is traffic almost everywhere.
But it was fairly early… 11:16am to be exact. Hey, I’m going to miss the “people going to lunch” traffic!
Off I go on my adventure! I’ll save you the boring details of my hum drum ride out to meet Jim. I would like to tell you a story about what I’ll call “A Taste of West Virginia”, though.
MY ADVENTURE REALLY BEGINS:
Jim rode out to meet me somewhere on Rte 60 in Virginia. We arrived at his farmhouse in WV a little after 7:00 Friday evening. Let me tell you something, at 2800 plus feet… Jim’s backyard is “literally” in the mountains. I mean, just the 2 mile ride off of 64 to his farm has twisties! & you get to drive uphill and downhill in gravel to get into his garage.
There at the door to the little farmhouse is Jim’s wife, Creta offering greetings and hospitality.
Creta is great! She had stoked the hell out of the woodburning stove to be sure the house was good and warm for us when we got there since it was in the high 30’s when Jim & I arrived at the farm. Creta also had dinner just about ready to go on the table.
Now, my story is not only about the roads that we traveled… but also of the indigenous food & drink that I experienced on that satisfying weekend.
Once in the house & ungeared we cracked open a couple of beers, kicked back & talked of things “EOM” until dinner was on the table.
DINNER TIME!
Creta had fixed us some wild turkey, gravy, apple sauce, bread & corn for dinner. Fresh from their jarring cellar were the apple sauce & corn. The wild gobbler had met its demise at the hands of my host, Jim. Mmmmm… all was delish!
After dinner we decided to go outside & see what we could see… Jim spotlighted 5-7 deer in his mountainous backyard (which is actually 42 acres). None of us were really sure how many deer were there. All we could see was their eyes.
Actually over the course of the weekend I had a chance to devour many fresh items. Besides the wild turkey, corn & apple sauce, I tried deer steak that had met its demise & was cleaned & cooked by Jim. And the thing I was most surprised about??? Shhhhhhhh… the moonshine… gen-u-ine WV corn mash. Just a few sips of that & I was done! In more than one way. After all I was riding in the morning. As far as I can figure this might have something to do with not being able to count the deer.
Saturday morning I’m sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. I’m looking out the window to see what I can see & there goes a deer slowly loping across the field in his yard! Jim says there were probably more out there. I just didn’t look hard enough.
Now, to the riding:
Saturday morning… 7:30am… the thermometer hanging from the garage is showing 20 degrees. Jim assures me that once the sun peaks over the horizon the temps will rise rapidly.
I found that statement to be true. I still don’t think that we left his garage until almost 11:00 am, though.
Off we go… a quick jump onto 64 to Route 20 south. From there it was a fairly short ride to Rte 3. Just as we were turning onto Rte 3 Jim pulls over & proclaims to me that Rte 3 is best experienced with nobody riding in front of ya’. Hahahaha!!! It didn’t take much prodding to get me to take the lead & careen down Rte 3. What a good road!
Trouble with it is it’s a fairly short ride… but long enough to get into a groove. From there we cruised 19 south into Princeton. 19 is also a good road! I just knew there was something to this Wild and Wonderful West Virginia stuff!
We stopped for a gas/drink break & struck up a conversation with some locals who had asked about our bikes. It turns out that the man used to have a BMW 1150RT & he was wondering how we liked our Yamahas. Now, what do you think we told him? Of course we said…….
“WE LOVEEEEE OUR BIKES!!!!”
He directed us to a place that we had no intention of going, but the ride will be saved in the memory banks to be scouted another day.
Again we are off to find a certain cycle shop by the name of Mercer County Chopper. MCC had the coolest motorcycle t-shirts! One of which I now own. It will be shared at a later date.
From MCC we headed out on 19, passed Bluefield College & rode into VA, jumped on 460 towards Tazewell & picked up Rte 16 in Cedar Bluff, VA.
Again, Jim stated that 16 is a road best experienced with nobody in front of ya’… so once again without much prodding, I took the lead to fully take in this road.
Man oh man… are you guys gonna’ cream your jeans! Oh, woopsy! Guys don’t do that, do they? Well, I did! This road is motorcycle heaven! There were lots of small towns, coal processing plants & curves. Some very historic towns & some that were obviously poor communities… but the roads!!! I’m tellin’ ya’… “motorcycle heaven”. The roads were all in great to decent shape & twisties galore!
I'd like to share a couple of pictures of Rte 16. I'm not the best photog & also wasn't the prettiest weather day ever so... here they are:
From sweepers to tight stuff to switchbacks. It can all be found on 16. Because of the time of the year that we rode it there was what Jim referred to as “slurry”… crap on the road that the coal trucks, etc have dropped. Mix in a little dampness like the day had presented & you’ve got some pretty slippery goo. We had to take it super easy on SEVERAL tight areas due to this goo. Jim explained that the north side of the mountain doesn’t get extended sun this time of the year & didn’t dry out well. He assures me that this problem doesn’t exist the time of the year that we’ll be riding the area.
We stopped for a break. It’s getting sort of late in the afternoon & Jim mentions making a stop for lunch. After a short discussion we decided to do some snacking at our rest stops & forego lunch so that we could finish our route before dark.
We left the rest stop & headed back out on 16 to 85 north. Jim was hell bent on taking me on one more of his favorite rides… so we took 85 & made a right onto Rte 99. We were “dead on” headed for Bolt Mountain. As soon as you turn onto this road it has an ominous feel to it.
The road is very obviously cut directly & deeply through the mountain. The road is not cut into the side of the mountain. The road went “threw” the mountain. There are 100-150 foot high rock walls jutting up from the roadside on both sides. Jim tells me that in certain spots, this road will only receive about 2 hours of daylight even on the hottest sunny days. We also encountered some unmelted snow while up there.
After finishing the ride over Bolt Mountain we were pretty much done with the technical riding for the day. It was getting dark & we beat feet for Beckley on Rte 3 behind lots of other people who wanted to go to Beckley, too. We stopped for one last break & hit 64 to slab back to the farmhouse. We arrived there about 7ish.
Creta wasn’t home so Jim whipped up dinner. This dinner is where the deer meat came into play. By the way Jim… that was some good stuff!
Whooped from the plus/minus 300 mile twisty day ride, we hit the rack by 9:45.
Sunday morning Creta says to me… would you like pancakes for breakfast? I answer surely! I luvvv pancakes!
Being a smart ass I say… and how about some West Virginia Maple Syrup to go with them while you’re at it! Jim looks at me & laughs & tells me that “ you don’t know what you just asked for”
Well, I also had WV Maple Syrup made from gorgeous Sugar Maple trees for my pancakes on Sunday morning. Jim’s daddy & a couple of his friends had once upon a time had quite a knack for milking sugar maple trees.
This picture is from our fall colors ride. It shows Jim (splkbuk), Sheryl, Gary (fjrgary), Glen (ONEMOREBIKE) & a Sugar Maple tree in the background.
After breakfast I slowly got ready for departure home. After packing the bike, hugging Creta & bidding sweet little Shadow (Creta’s sweet little dog) a farewell, Jim & I were on our way out to explore.
Here's a picture of Shadow.
A few drops of rain had fallen & Jim left the route up to me… take the long twisty way out of the hills on Rte 311 & go home from Roanoke, VA on 460 or slab out on Rte 64 & take rte 60 from Buena Vista, over the Blue Ridge Parkway & out towards Richmond, VA. Which is also a nice ride.
I voted for the shorter of the two… the slab/rte 60 way was going to be the fastest & I really didn’t feel much like riding in any rain… which was a possibility on Rte 311.
Before I departed WV Jim took me on a tour of Lewisburg. Um, I don’t think that anyone will be disappointed. There are plenty of restaurants, taverns & fuel around the area. Also, it is a quaint historic town with beautiful & majestic old homes.
From there I headed home & I really don’t have much to tell you beyond the preceding words. My goal was to share my tasting experience with everyone.
Until EOM… be good everyone & rubber side down.
Heidi (luvtoride)
Last edited by a moderator:
