Day 3 (8-8-09)

Last night after coming in from dinner, Rick and I discussed going out towards the New River Gorge Bridge again. Both of us wanted to get down below the bridge and get a closer look at it. (That and harass the troll’s family members.) Fortunately, someone had put together a nice “flower sniffin” route that went out that way and in addition the loop went by an old grist mill and something called Sandstone Falls. The route also looked like it had a few roads that would put some miles of the sides of the tires, too.

Saturday morning, Rick and I gassed up and headed out towards the New River Gorge Bridge. I was told by my father that if I go right out of the parking lot of the info center at the bridge I will end up on a small (paved) goat path leading down to the river and crossing on the old bridge. Well wouldn’t you know it, Dad knew what he was talking about; it was a goat path for sure. Fortunately the park has this marked so that it was mostly one way traffic, which was nice. I am assuming it rained a bit the night before as the goat path was covered in mud runoff and rocks in several of the 180 degree off camber corners which could have been a bit nerve racking on some of the larger touring bikes.

To spare some details and typing for hours, Rick and I stopped several times on this road to take a few pictures. I think we actually spent around 2 hours riding down that road taking pictures as we went. Here are a few:

From there Rick set the GPS up to lead us on this loop around to The Grist Mill and Sandstone Falls. Now I had a print out of this map including turn by turn directions in my tank bag just incase we were to get separated for some reason. Well, the GPS did a good job of keeping us off the main highways that day and to be honest that is probably the nicest thing I can say about the darn thing… Don’t get me wrong, I am sure they can be very handy, but I be damned if that thing didn’t lead us down several miles of gravel roads. Now, gravel roads don’t bother me as long as they are fairly smooth and not chewed up and muddy. The FZ has a decent ground clearance and with its upright sitting position it is fairly easy to control in dirt road situations. So bouncing down those gravel roads really didn’t bother me that much, I was actually having fun with it. But after the GPS told us to turn left on a path that I would have enjoyed taking the KX down, Rick and I had enough. So we turned around and went back down the way we came, and I do mean down. The last path we took was an uphill climb for about half a mile, so coming back down that was fun to say the least.

Where we came from..

What was ahead...

Where it wanted us to go...

We managed to get ourselves back on a main paved highway, Hwy 60 I believe it was. A quick stop on the side of the road to look over the map and attempt to adjust some settings on the GPS and we were off again. This time we were able to stay on paved roads to our next stop which was The Grist Mill.

No thanks, Im good up here. Tubing...FTL.

It was around lunch time and we were both getting hungry, however, restaurants are few and far between in this area of WV so we were pretty much S.O.L. It looked as though the road was going to be twisty coming out of the Grist Mill so I took point and led us on down to Sandstone Falls near Hinton, WV. Not sure exactly what path we took to get there but man it was fun aside from the random repair jobs that left the bottoms of the right hand corners rough which cause the bike to become very unsettled at very bad time… The only road in and out of the falls was pretty neat, too. It ran along side the river for a couple miles going by camp grounds and several small houses along the way. It dead ended for the most part in the parking lot for the falls. Rick and I weren’t too sure about this would work as it looked like the falls were a bit hidden from the road. Turns out there was a nice “cat walk” that led to the falls and around the island. We took some pictures and joked about my lack of desire to ever go tubing in water like that and then saddled back up to find some food.

Rick turned the GPS back on and searched for a small hot dog stand there in town. Well turns out it had been shut down, so we headed towards the next item on the list, Pizza Hut. A few minutes later, Rick has us down some small road beside some rail road tracks behind an auto body shop. He stops and says, the Pizza Hut is supposed to be here. The GPS let me down, again…

Rick ended up asking a local where the closest restaurant was, which turned out to be just down the road about half a mile, including the Pizza Hut. So we pulled in and got ourselves a pizza and some bread sticks realizing that our dinner with the MTF crowd that night was going to be Italian and we were to be there in a few hours. Oops.

After lunch we set a path home, however we took a route a little bit different from what the route had suggested. Ken, one of the local riders had suggested taking Hwy 3 instead of 64 to get back home which was fine by me. Hwy 3 looked as though it would be twisty and would take us through the woods of WV, so off we went.

Sure enough, the road was twisty and was well maintained too, much to my surprise. I went around Rick to take point and he let me know I had 10 miles to play before the next road change.

Shortly after this I came up on small burgundy car following an S-10 up the road. About the time I got up to them the car had snuck out and passed the S-10 to make its way up the mtn. A few hundred yards later I had a safe opportunity and followed suit. The corners were tight, marked at 15-20 mph which means fun for me. So I was out doing my thing, off the bike and diving into corners and after a while of doing this (1 mile or so) I realize I haven’t caught up to that burgundy car yet. No sooner that I got that though through my head I round the next corner to see that car stuck behind a Suburban. It turned out that small car was a Pontiac Vibe GT. It had been lowered and was sitting on a nice set of wheels and really didn’t look that bad for a Vibe. A couple corners later the Suburban pulls over and the Vibe takes off. Ah what the heck, lets see what he’s got….

Now I know this kind of stuff should be left on the track and I am fool for even doing this on the street, but just bear with me here. We take off down this mountain road and I realize that at a playful speed this guy is pulling me; so it was time to get serious. I step it up a bit and start pushing the bike a harder through the corners getting the bike down a bit lower each time and accelerating hard out. However after one corner I pull the trigger as the road opens up and realize that I just clicked into 4th and I have never been on this road before. I maybe dumb, but I am not about to play that game. I shut off and wave the guy on motioning with my hand I would rather do twisties that straight line stuff. To my surprise, he slows down and waits on me until we get to the next set of corners! A mile or so later, we are back at it and still I can’t do anything. Even if the road was wide enough that I could pass, I could not get around this guy! However at this point I know I am beginning to push him a bit as he starts to break double yellow by 6 inches or so in a couple of the left hand corners, but this only happened a couple times! Several corners later we come up behind a small blue car coming down a hill an into a left hand corner. To my surprise he down shifts and takes off which looked like he was going to rear end this car in the middle of the corner! It turned out there was a passing lane at the end of that corner. It was then that I realized this was a local and he knew the road, I was screwed. The rest of the way down this Hwy 3 it was all I could do to stay on his back bumper. I was impressed and disappointed at the same time to say the least. At the road interchange I waved to the driver of the Vibe and gave him thumbs up and a few moments later Rick shows up and we carry on back to the hotel.

When we got back to the hotel we had about an hour or so before we had to head out to dinner. However, after my little run with the Vibe I was still pumped up and I honestly felt like I didn’t spend enough time enjoying this beautiful country side. So I geared back up, gassed up again and picked up a West Virginia and Virginia map and picked a direction to ride.

I ended up continuing down Hwy 3 headed west and after a few miles on this great road I sent a text to one of the MTF members saying, “Having too much fun, Ill catch you later this evening at the hotel.” Hwy 3 wound its way though parts of coal country which meant several small towns following the rail road and a river of some sort. I remember seeing this when we came up several years back doing the off road thing however at the time I was maybe 15 or 16. Six years later I have grown up a bit and have a better understanding of what it takes to survive and how hard money comes and how quick it goes. It was eye opening to see this situation over and over as I made my way down Hwy 3. There were a few coal mines with large silos and conveyers along this stretch as well, but to my surprise I only met a couple large trucks and the road surface was clean. 40 some miles later I came up towards the end of Hwy 3 in a small town that still used the old stop lights that covered 4 directions with one lamp and was still set up on a timer. You could hear the relays clicking as the bulbs changed.

From Hwy 3 I got on Hwy 119 to Hwy 85 which was not quite as clean as Hwy 3 and had a bit more wild life moving around. I came up on a few deer from time to time on that road, which was really my concern now as the sun was starting to set. Once again, like Hwy 3, several small communities or rows of houses all within a few miles of every coal mine. While these people weren’t living high on the hog, from what I keep hearing they are doing quite well compared to the southern coal country. I can’t even imagine.

Off Hwy 85 I made a left on to Hwy 99, what a hoot that was. This road started on top of a mountain and it was latterly cut into it. I mean the road was lined on both sides with rock walls! It was freshly paved and the lanes were wide with nice flowing corners that were marked around 30 to 40 mph. I still can not get over how nice a road that was! It ended up leading me back to Hwy 3 just outside of Beckley. I had ridden roughly 150 miles in the past couple hours and I had missed dinner (so worth it). So I pulled into a Wendy’s got a quick bite and headed back to the hotel for the evening to B.S. with the group. Now the day was complete!