Skyline Drive MD/VA/WV three day roadtrip

[DougZ73]

Ride report November 2010 ride, Jeff and Doug


Decided to do one last road trip ride, with my buddy Jeff. All summer each of us had things going on, that would not allow us to get our timing together and head out for a much needed roadtrip. We finally got it together and set out for a plan to do a three day trip, November 13th, 14th and 15th.

The original plan was to head north and try to catch the changing of the leaves. Sadly, due to timing conflicts, we were not able to make it happen in time. Also the fact that we did not necessarily wanna get stuck in potentially nasty weather, the plan was changed and we decided to wing it, and head south. We did develop some what of a plan, and wanted to include Skyline Drive (http://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisi...line-drive.htm ). Neither one of us had ridden it, and wanted to. Had we had more time, we would have done some of the Blue Ridge Parkway as well, but we still got to do plenty of fun roads….Skyline Drive, Rt 250 and Rt 219 in WV/VA.

Here is the obligatory shot of us ready to leave Saturday morning…mid 30's.



The bikes:

Jeff's: 2008?? Yamaha FJR 1300
Mine: 2003 Suzuki SV1000s. (( The funny trunk set up is because I decided I wanted a GSXR 600/750 tail section on the bike. I had to fabricate a custom subframe to do it. When I did it, I only made the plastics of the tail, strong enough to hold themselves on, and not necessarily strong enough for 40-60 lbs of saddle bags hanging off of them.
Looks nicer with just the tail and cowl on there, but the luggage/rack does its job.
http://home.comcast.net/~dougzweb/sv992.jpg ))


This is the route we ended up doing…(kinda)reconstructed in google maps.

From my town to North East, MD: 89.6 Miles

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...83026&t=h&z=10

The bulk of the fun riding, the main route. 668 Miles. These miles included Skyline Drive, Rt 250 and Rt 219. All fun roads for sure.

http://tinyurl.com/2c3s4ko




The last leg of day three, Warwick MD to home. 103 Miles.


http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...=UTF8&t=h&z=10


Total miles with reconstruction: ~ 860 miles. On the Odo: 954 Miles.

We had stayed in Front Royal, VA for the first night. Then did Skyline Drive the next day with some other riding, and stayed in Elkins, WV the next night. ( I'll get more into that later.)

From my little town in south NJ, we jumped on RT 295, headed down over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and got on Rt 95 south to exit 100. We got off there to start the back roads, from Rising Sun MD.

Jeff is more courageous with his camera than I am with mine..taking shots as we are were riding. This was actually the only place he did it. Interestingly enough…he dropped it, BUT, while we were standing in a parking lot, at Wendy's, where we stopped for lunch the first day. Figure that one out.





This was a side of the road stop somewhere in MD. We decided it would be a good spot to grab some pics.






We rode some more of the route to get down towards Front Royal, VA, for the night. The sun was setting nicely, behind the mountains……we decided to stop for some more day one shots. Jeff and I shot some similar pics, with out trying.
Jeff shot:

My shot:


Jeff taking one of the shots.


And finally we were at the Super 8 Motel in Front Royal. It was priced right and we were ready to get off the bikes and get some dinner. We could see our bikes from the comfort of the hotel room.


The guy at the hotel recommended us to grab dinner at Dean's Steakhouse….was supposed to be the best steak in town. I don't know about that, but it was good enough and really nice to be off bikes and grab some steaks and beers.

End of Day one. Day two..Skyline Drive to Elkins, WV.

To be continued. Sidenote: I have a new respect for anyone that creates any of the RR's, I read here on ADV. They really do take a lot of work. I was gonna try and get it all done in one shot…I decided it would never get done if I did that.