Dog Days Rally
shawmutt August 16th, 2008
I woke up from my Friday nap, packed a few things, and headed on down to the beautiful Pocahontas County of West Virginia. After four hours and a few detours I arrived at my destination. Some folks were already there–some had been there for the whole week!
I checked into my motel room, and boy was it dismal. It was fifty bucks a night for a dingy room with water that barely ran. I was not happy at all, but since I was there to ride and not hang out in a motel room, I decided to let it go. I unpacked my bike and called Rebecca to check in—or tried to.
This area is within the National Radio Quiet Zone. Cell phones don’t work at all, so I have to rely on the phones in motel rooms. I already knew this and had purchased a pre-paid phone card. What I didn’t know is that my motel room had no phone! I actually searched the room twice over, thinking maybe they stuffed it in a drawer or something. There was no phone to be found. I remembered the pay phone they had by the motel office. That phone didn’t work. Grumbling, I rode my bike to the nearest gas station, which also had a non-working phone to offer. I was getting a bit nervous, and started thinking I was in a horror or sci-fi novel. After scanning the woods for serial killers and scanning the sky for UFOs, I mounted back up and started my quest for a pay phone. I finally found a working phone 10 miles away, checked in, and told Rebecca I’d see her Sunday–there will be no more phone calls. I bought a six-pack at the nearest store, rode back to the “motel”, and hung out with fellow bikers around a campfire until late.
Saturday morning, and it was time to leave the crappy motel room and do some riding. As backwards as this part of the country is, it offers some phenomenal roads. I don’t know, and I don’t care, where the state gets all their money to keep everything nicely paved. All I know is that the tar is pristine, and the curves are many, and it takes all my concentration to keep from flying off the side.
I hooked up with the dual sport guys, and a couple Connies. Nothing humbles me as much as riding with these guys. The leader, Pat, was riding half the bike I was—a Suzuki 350—twice as well. I stay in the middle of the pack, and try to keep up, but it’s more an exercise of luck than skill. All my focus is needed while whipping around the twisties with these guys up in the mountains.
After a few hours in, we took a turn down a pretty country road that wound through the woods following a stream. We were about 12 miles down this road when we saw, and promptly blew past, a “road closed” sign. Road closed signs are for Harleys and cages, not for us. We rode on until we found, in fact, the road was closed and blocked by heavy equipment and a pile of dirt. We had to turn around and were put two hours off course, leading to a late lunch.
The place we stopped at for lunch was interesting indeed. It was literally “home cookin’”. The “restaurant” was a trailer home named Rella’s Cafe in Hacker Valley. They cleared out the dining room and living room, set up tables and chairs, and opened shop. Very nice old ladies cooked dinner over the stove in the kitchen while chatting us up. I had my doubts when I first entered, but a buffalo burger with onion rings hooked me in.
There are a lot of bikers that go to this area. All different sorts can be found here, from the nut jobs like us who race around corners, to the nut jobs like Harley owners who mass in big groups and take their time. When either group passes the other in opposing lanes, all is fine with the world. A quick wave and both groups are on their way. However, the laws of physics are against us. Our increased velocity through mountain ranges and the overall decreased velocity of the Harley owners inevitably means we will run into the ass end of a group of them. This happened after lunch. There were no nice passing zones, so we joined the group.
The contrast between a typical Harley Owner and our type of rider is distinct. It’s even more so with the two groups together. The Harley Owner is typically all in leather, all black clothes except for blue jeans, wearing the smallest sliver of helmet allowed by law. Our type is decked out in full synthetic gear, all reflective, wearing full-faced helmets. Their bikes, shiny chrome, loud pipes–ours, dirty metal, and engines that sound like sewing machines. While dealing with the boredom that is riding behind a group of hogs, and having no passing zones in sight, I spent the time reflected on all this. I also planned out the rest of my week, played a few solitary games of “I spy”, and started watching ant hills we were passing. Yeah, they were that slow.
Thankfully the Harley owners pulled off at the next gas station, and we were good to go. Or we would have been, if we weren’t at the 200 mile mark. We also needed gas. It was a frantic race against the clock. We needed to gas up and get out of there before the Harleys did. In the frantic rush four guys took off ahead of the last two. Guess who was one of the last two?
Roger and I raced along the road, playing catch up for a while. Roger, like just about everyone else in my group, is a superior rider, so I watch him get more and more distant until I didn’t see him around curves anymore. Reserved to just having a good time, I punched my destination in my GPS, rolled back on the throttle, and just started to ride.
Evidently Roger gave up on catching the other four as well; I saw him again a few miles down the road. We rode together for a while until he stopped by a gravel road. I pulled up alongside.
“Feel like doing some dirt?” He asked.
“Sure, lead the way!” I replied, and we started down the gravel.
In short order, the nicely maintained gravel road turned into a nightmare of large loose stone severely angled down. It was more a dried up waterfall than a road. There was no turning around, so we slid and skidded down the mountainside. Every time we thought it was getting better it turned bad again. At one point a 4×4 truck met up going up. After he stopped laughing, he assured us it got better soon. We continued on, not sure about how soon exactly. After a few minutes we heard the truck making its way back down, apparently it was too much for a 4×4. Six miles, a broken horn bracket, and nearly an hour later we finally made it down.
We got back on regular pavement and made it back to the rally headquarters just in time for dinner and our group photo.
Sunday morning arrived too soon, and it was time to pack it up and head home. I took my time, stopping for a few pictures. I saw a sign for a “nature viewing area”, and turned down the road. Now I’m not sure what kind of vehicle they expect people to be in, but I can’t figure out how any car could get to this area.
I did stop and snap a picture of the area temp later in the morning after things warmed up a bit. The lows that weekend up in the mountains were down in the 40s. It was a nice break from the August weather back in PA, that’s for sure.
I’m not used to riding on Sundays, and wasn’t used to seeing all the bikes on the road. It was a nice feeling. What wasn’t a nice feeling was the lack of return waves. Watch two bikes cross paths on the road. Most likely you’ll see “the wave”. This simple hand gesture expresses the bond that bikers share. It brings me back to the days when everyone knew everyone, and everyone waved a friendly hello when they crossed paths. Apparently, “the wave” is affected by a lot of hidden rules on Sundays. Sport bikes wave to sport bikes, cruisers to cruisers, and Harleys to Harleys. Intermingling among bike species on Sundays is not allowed.
Hand gesture analysis aside, I finally made it home in one piece. I rode a total of 660 miles altogether, and boy my butt hurt! It was nice way to finish a last ride.
Last ride? Yeah, it’s time to wrap up biker dude shawmutt for a while. The bike’s not going anywhere–I’ll still commute and occasionally get lost on some gravel road somewhere, but I’m done with the joyrides and weekend trips for a while. A combination of many things led to this decision, but to put it simply I want to focus on Rebecca and the kids for a while, and my hobbies need to reflect that. For a while church and the sportsman club will be my focus.
When I first laid eyes on my bike in the showroom, I had big dreams of strapping fishing poles and hunting rifles to the bike and hitting the great outdoors. However, between Zack crawling around, and our second coming so soon, I’ve realized some priorities need to be adjusted. I find my dreams of riding remote fire trails and fishing isolated Pennsylvania streams have been replaced with the reality of packing the family in the cage and driving to the Sportsman’s Club lake. Add that to the massive amount of work my house needs, including a basement and nursery that needs finishing, and pretty much every weekend is shot.
I’m not complaining. I’m just realizing this is a different chapter of my life and I need to act accordingly. Too soon our kids will be grown up and I’ll be bored again, but right now they are running us ragged and I need to spend my weekends at home.
