| 500 Miles and Home by Noon |
| Saturday, 03 April 2010 14:52 | |||
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I've been itching to do an IBA Saddlesore 1000 ride ever since I learned what one was. It's really quite simple, you ride a motorcycle 1000 miles in under 24 hours and very carefully document the trip. Over the last few months I've been doing a lot of reading and finally figured out a perfect destination and one that I could work into a trip that I already have planned to the Smoky Mountains this coming May. New Orleans, LA So why New Orleans? Well firstly it's 1096 miles from my house so it's a perfectly safe distance, meaning I'm not going to wind up short on mileage. Secondly is because we have good friends who moved down there last year and it would be great to see Bo and Julie again. And last but far from least, I could barely think of a more perfect ending to such a sojourn as the Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter! Hmm a hot cup of coffee and a warm beignet. So what does this have to do with the title of this article? Well in order to get ready for such an audacious journey it was suggested to me by those who have already accomplished this feat that I should take a couple of long trips to accilimate myself and to see if I could even do such a long ride. Enter Weston, WV. Weston, WV sits 249 miles from my house which seemed like a perfect trial distance. I figure if I can make half the required 1000 miles I'll be able to do the whole thing come May. But just driving 250 miles out and back seems too pointless, there has to be something to see in Weston. I mean every place has a reason for it to originally have been settled, even if it was just a rail junction.Google and Wikipedia brought up a rather interesting place to at least call a destination point - The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. You know, the name alone dregs up the sounds of maniacal laughter, forboding organ music and a peel of thunder. Perfect! I have a destination now I just needed to get the bike and myself ready.   
In preperation of my May trip I've been getting farkles added to the bike. The latest goody to come in this week was a RAM mount for my iPhone. This particular mount utilizes four spring loaded "fingers" to hold various sized objects. I had to go with this as I use an Otterbox Defender case for my phone and there are no specific mounts for that setup. This worked fantastically well and I had no worries about the phone slipping out of this holders grip. It's hard to see in the picture but I ran power from an accessory distribution block that I have mounted on the toolbox door under the left side cover, to a waterresistant plug that I picked up from Walmart. The only place I could find to mount it was on the windshield mounting bracket. I didn't want to drill that, so I used velcro to attach it. That way when I need to remove the windshield I can just pull the power plug off, without having to go thru a major hassle. It all worked great giving me a gps tracker and allowing me to listen to the built in ipod. Last night I got everything wrapped up and ready to go by about 9:30 and headed straight to bed. The alarm clock was set to go off at 3:30 and of course I woke up at 3:28 - what ever. Showered, dressed and started to hesitate about wearing my First Gear over pants, afterall it was supposed to get close to 80degrees. I looked outside at the thermometer and it read right at 50. So I'm pondering at this point, "Hmm, well that's cool enough and I've got my roll bag, I can always throw them in that when it gets too warm, and I am heading up over the mountains, yeah better take them." 4:12 AM and I've just logged in my notebook the starting time and the odometer reading of 6973 (yeah she's still pretty new). Off I head to the nearby 7-Eleven to top off the tank and get my first receipt. 20 minutes later I'm fueled up and getting on 270. As I start to make my way up to Germantown I'm wondering if the cops are out, since this is a heavily patrolled stretch of road. No sooner had I started thinking about this than a State Trooper goes by my like I'm standing still. OK so an indicated 70 in a 55 isn't getting their attention this morning. Sigh of relief. As I got past Frederick and started to head up into the mountains the temperature took a quick turn downwards and I was very glad that I was wearing the overpants. Traffic was almost non existent and I was surprised to see just how off the spedometer really is on the bike. I read on the forums that the spedometers on the VTX's were notoriously wrong and now I had proof with the GPS. Driving at an indicated 80mph was really only 72 based on the MotionX application. Given that the few people who were out were hauling along at a pretty good clip I inched it up to just over 80mph based on the GPS. The bike seems to have a real sweet spot between 75 and 85. I slowed down going thru Cumberland and had just picked up the pace again. Looking at the odometer reading 130 I was wondering at this speed how much further I'd get before the low fuel indicator came on. I'd honestly no more than thought that and the light popped on. As providence would have it I was only 5 miles from exit 22 Grantsville which offered full services. A quick top off at the BP and then a dash into the Burger King for breakfast and then I was off again with the next stop being my destination. I'm not sure what the temperature was but things were definitly getting nippy. By the time I hit the Eastern Continental Divide the shivers were making my back spasm. I just kept thinking that the sun would eventually come out this morning and I just had to make it till then. Brrrr Keeping at the same pace, even with the 20 minute stop off I was averaging 67mph and quickly got to Weston, WV. I missed the first exit ramp and then saw one labled South Weston and so took that. A slight 5 min detour thru town brought me to the asylum. The time was 8:08 and I'd put 249 miles on the odometer. The asylum, now known as the Weston State Hospital was originally built during the Civll War and was used up thru the mid 1980's when it was closed down. The place is currently a tourist stop - if you're into the paranormal and giving yourself the heebie jeebies. Sure it looks fine in the morning light but I can't imagine staying over night in the place, which is something that you can do if you're up for it. A few pictures, a stop for gas, a cup of coffee and I was on my way back. I left at around 8:30 and started heading back at the same pace that I'd come up. Thank goodness West Virginia's Finest (State Troopers) were off on more pressing business than enforcing the speed limits along I79. The sun was up and I was finally warming up and having a fine time hauling along. The only down side was that I'd changed over my visor to my tinted one and had never realized how poorly it seals up at the bottom. The wind noise was attrocious in comparison to the clear shield that I'd been wearing on the way up. But no time for stopping and futzing. I had home to get to and a time frame to get there. Next stop was at Lavale, MD just outside of Cumberland. Refueled, relieved and I was off again. Now I was starting to hit traffic for the first time. What is it with these people doing the speed limit? Not that we were really even doing the speed limit but up until now I had been pretty heavy handed on the throttle. Time to slow down and relax a bit. I knew this section of road and what to expect so there were no surprises even with the traffic.
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Next stop was the same 7-Eleven where I'd topped off 8 hours and 499 miles earlier. One more stop to make before hitting home and that was to get a cold 6 pack as my concilation prize to myself. Oh yeah I just got done drinking one on the back porch and smoking a cigar. Nice way to wrap up the day. I actually logged the time and odometer reading once I got back to the house. So even after that last stop for beer, I clocked out at 12:26. Total mileage 504, total time 8hours and 14minutes.
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