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Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:32 pm: | 
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Me 'n Carlost Danger slogged out 272 miles through the rain-saturated rooftop of Virginia on Saturday,
on a day when any sane person woulda spent the day on the couch with a brew in one hand and the remote in the other.
We are not sane, however; we are BadWeatherBikers. 
That's Carlost Danger on the left. Ya wanna be careful around the dude, lest he try to stiff you when you're not looking...
That's a much too clean Road King on the right. When will I ever learn?
Photo by Denise, the hostest with the mostest.  |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:34 pm: |
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At least Denise had the common sense to stay home and stay dry... |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:38 pm: |
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Why is Carlost so happy? We're four thousand feet up in the mountains of southwest Virginia, riding one of the twistiest roads around,
and IT HAS STOPPED RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:40 pm: |
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Ferris B happy, too, in part because very soon we'll be climbing out of our frikkin' rain gear. |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:42 pm: |
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This is much later in the day... |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:51 pm: |
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...on a road that Shall Not Be Named... |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 08:57 pm: |
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...doing what we've been doing all day... |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:05 pm: |
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...trying to surgically dissect our way through the weather.
We're in Tazewell, aiming for Marion. See the cell parked over Hungry Mother State Park? We're betting that by the time we get there
we'll roll in behind that cell (and its smaller sibling to the west), but ahead (barely) of the cell sliding in on the far left of the screen.
Worked like a charm, and we did this All. Day. Long. 
(Message edited by fb1 on July 28, 2013) |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:08 pm: |
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The Road That Shall Not Be Named is oh-so-sweet (although a little less so in the wet spots)... |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:10 pm: |
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...and this is the view from the corner above, looking back the way we came. |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:25 pm: |
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This is a low dam on the New River, near Mouth of Wilson, Virginia. We've had a ton of rain this summer, and the New is chocolate-brown
and angry.
We're almost home. We've successfully dodged rain ever since we left Independence this morning, although it's been plenty close all day.
We had to pull up radar again in Galax, to decide which of our options for getting back to Fancy Gap was best.
We settled on the diagonal, neatly slicing yet again between two cells, only to encounter fog so thick on the Parkway
I needed the GPS to tell me where to turn into our driveway (just kidding, but just barely...), as the last light of the day faded into night.
Denise had an ice chest full of beer waiting for us, and supper in the crockpot. We knocked back some chewy brews,
fired up a rerun of the MotoGP from Laguna on the DVR, filled our bellies, and laughed at our collective good fortune.
We are BadWeatherBikers.
(Message edited by fb1 on July 28, 2013) |
Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:27 pm: |
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Fb1
| | Posted on Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 09:28 pm: |
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Reepicheep
| | Posted on Monday, July 29, 2013 - 08:21 am: |
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Nice! |
Fb1
| | Posted on Monday, July 29, 2013 - 04:04 pm: |
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Thanks Reep. 
There are a LOT of this ride's adventures not depicted above, partly because of the weather, but mostly because we were having too much fun to slow down and grab pix. We had originally planned to ride clear up into Kentucky, but had to scrub that route onnaconna the weather. Carlost showed me a nearby road Saturday that I'd never ridden before, that absolutely knocked my socks off - it's all paved, but barely the width of a car at times, with no centerline or fog lines, just twist after twist after twist. We had to (mostly) behave Saturday because of the conditions, but this road rocked. We have made a pact to not publicly identify this road (the same pact we made several years ago re: The Road That Shall Not Be Named mentioned earlier, although the bastiches have now given it a sexy name and a logo and a website and are publicizing the heck out of it).
We agreed we'd be glad to show it to somebody in person, but beyond that all I'm saying is it's in southwest Virginia, not all that far from here, and really deserves to be ridden on something sportier than a Road King.  |
Prior
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - 12:29 am: |
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Man I'm glad Reep posted. I read this report just after the action, but copious home brews, cornfields and visiting with some old friends has delayed my posting... Where's prior this week...
Y'all had an epic ride as I can see and stuck to our trend of bad weather bikers- glad I offed that Harley rain suit a few years ago . Can't wait to ride both the original route and the weather compensated alternative route- sure they are suckless!
I also have another great KY trip, courtesy of reep's whiskey trail gps coordinates...
Well done fellas! Great to see a ride report! What oil did you run and did you smoke any other Harley's??? |
Fb1
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - 11:10 am: |
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SYN3, and the only thing we smoked were the bicycle vans coming down Whitetop Mountain!
The H-D rain pants you gave me are toast -remember how badly they failed that day we rode up to Beckley in the rain? The pants I wore on Saturday are an old stand-by. They're a pain to put on, but they don't leak.
The H-D rain jacket is starting to come apart, too, but seems to still be water-tight as long as you cinch the neck up real, real tight.
Carlost was pretty much soaked when we de-suited in Damascus, right down to his wallet, despite his gear. It was really, really, really wet the first part of our ride!
Back to the bicycle vans on Whitetop: Remind Carlost to tell you the story sometime.  |
M2nc
| | Posted on Friday, August 02, 2013 - 10:02 pm: |
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Gotta love the squadron of bicycle vans.
Frogg Toggs neck is too big for me and I did not get the hood on to try and slow down the water inside the gear until we were out of the rain. That sucked! My Olympia riding jacket no longer repels anything but road rash, so the wallet in the jacket pocket did not save the wallet.
Other than being wet for a short time, the ride was a blast. At least I got to try out the new Pirelli Trails in the rain and wet conditions. A little mud, gravel and dirt was fun. |
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