Ride Report, Solo Ride through West Virginia and Virginia

During the second week of May this year, my plan was to spend 8 solid days on the road, but unfortunately mother nature decided otherwise. It was the high 40s, low 50s and raining on and off. So I left on a Tuesday instead of Sunday as planned. It was still chilly and raining off and on the entire day.

Since I really had zero plans other than meeting my wonderful friend Tamela Rich in Roanoke VA on Thursday, I had plenty of time so I took the long way down and stayed off highway, went around DC and ended up my first night in Front Royal, VA.

Front Royal is basically the starting point of the Blue Ridge Parkway. As much I as I enjoy the scenery of the parkway, it’s a fairly limiting road due to the speed limits and traffic. But I did do an obligatory portion of the top of the parkway so I could snap a few pics. And do a little scenic, casual riding.

One of the many well paved roads I found in WVA.

We went riding the following morning and ended up on one of the many unpaved backroads that VA is notorious for. For the ADV folk out there, it's a dreamy place to ride. But for us, particularly me and my smooth tires, it was a nailbiter. I've been on 3 death grip dirt roads in my illustrious 15-year riding career. This one was one of the worst.

A single lane, dirty, steep, gravel-filled road with no room to turn around. Something about riding uphill on this kind of road terrifies me when I'm on a sportbike. All I could see was my rear wheel spinning so fast and hard, losing traction and then flipping over. My bike has so much torque and can send so much power to the rear wheel, even at 1,000rpm that I didn't foresee this going very well.

My friend Tamela on her dirt worthy F650GS

This is why many sporty folk fear the dirt. We can lose traction so very quickly. I know that if I were on a cute KLX250 with knobby tires that I would've tore up that hill like it was a smooth, paved track. 

Luckily I remembered what my friend Nancy from Streetmasters told me a long time ago; smooth and steady in 2nd gear. So up I went. It was only a mile or so but felt like 10. This was really the most exciting part of my trip. Otherwise, I had an uneventful trip with an awesome friend whom I missed very much. We have

Sometimes getting out of my comfort zone can be painful. But afterwards, it feels so good knowing that I did it!

Trip planning post, if you want to see what gear and luggage I used

downloads for gpx files

GPX Routes for Virginia and West Virginia

This week I’ve been having fun riding around VA and WVA before and after meeting up with a friend in Roanoke. Here are the individual GPX Routes I created, feel free to download any or all of them:

Philly to Front Royal VA

Front Royal VA to Roanoke VA

Elkins WV to Philly

Staunton VA to Hagerstown MD (I did this because I didnt have time to do Elkins to Hagerstown)

Elkins WV to Hagerstown MD (if you have more time than I did)

You might be wondering how I do my routing and directions on the fly while I’m on a trip like this. Because I refuse to bring a laptop for a 3-5 day trip. I do have my iPad sometimes but it’s not a laptop.

But when I’m out on a ride, or on a short trip, these are the 3 things I use: in conjunction with my iPhone so that I can do two very important things: A/ Create, save and/or share a route on my phone (without a computer) and B/ Receive turn by turn directions into my helmet.

1. Bluetooth Intercom (Sena or Cardo or Other). Right now, I’m using an older Sena SMH10R since my Sena 10R is on my Bell. But this Summer I’m going to spring for a new Cardo Freecom 4+ with JBL speakers. Woo hoo!

2. InRoute app (iPhone only) - Read my Review here which shows you how to make GPX routes on the fly, as well as exporting them to share with a friend, or saving them for later. This feature is what differentiates it from Google Maps. At least for those of us with iPhones. I’m guessing Android users might have more privileges, and if that’s the case please post a comment below.
   As much as I like this app, the only thing I hate right now is the sound quality of the Voice. The female US English voice is too high pitched, so I started using the male UK English voice and it’s much better. I’m hoping that when I switch to Cardo, it’ll be a little better. The Google Maps voice (I call her Gigli) is much, much clearer and smoother.

3. Google Maps: I mainly use this as a search tool for things like gas stations, restaurants, etc. Although you can create a multi-waypoint trip, you are limited to so many waypoints (far less than 100, I think 10ish or something) and you can’t save them on an iPhone. So InRoute really works better as a trip planning tool.

So I use #1 and #2 so that I can get turn by turn directions through to my helmet so I don’t have to look down to view the directions. I do have my phone mounted to a Ram Mount just in case, but I generally try not to look at it and just rely on the audio.

I created all of the above routes on my iPhone, using the InRoute app, no computers needed. You do have to pay a monthly or annual fee in order to have many waypoints but it’s worth the $30/year subscription for 100+ waypoints.

If you have any questions, please post a comment!

For more trip photos, please follow me: instagram.com/gearchic

New Review: Garmin Zumo 390LM Motorcycle GPS

After spending a long week riding with my Zumo, I've finally gotten around to writing this review about my experience using it. Specifically, how to use the damn thing with my macbook and import / use custom routes. Enjoy!