Time for another Deals Gap Ride Report!
Rode down between May 7-18 for 12 days of twisty madness. The goal this time was to ride down to the Ironhorse Motorcycle Lodge and meet up with a bunch of fellow VStrommers. Ideally I would spend 5 days getting there on mostly new-to-me twisty backroads, then ride around the Smoky's for 3 days and ride then home over 4 days on different backroads. In total I rode over 7000km along mostly twisty backroads and had the trip of a lifetime. Lot's of links to sweet roads mapped out throughout.
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Before leaving on this trip I had researched a lot of great twisty mountain roads to explore (i.e. hidden gems) and plotted out some pretty intricate routes that stitched together every single good suggestion that came my way. I even ponied up the coin to buy the America Rides Maps which highlight a lot of local roads within the Appalachians that I wanted to explore, as opposed to riding the same old ones again and again, like the Back of The Dragon, The Snake, etc.... I prefer very tight and technical roads with steep elevation changes and banked corners, instead of fast moving sweepers. So now my routes were starting to look like this:
My bike was a 2010 VStrom 650 with around 75,000km. It was totally prepped and ready for the trip with full luggage, aftermarket suspension, Corbin seat, Hwy pegs, hardwired GPS and so much more. It simply ran like a dream. I had just installed a Delkevic exhaust on it which sounded really nice. But as fate would have it, I was heading out to grab a burger and on my way there I hit one of my neighbours who lives about 15 houses away! He had a massive Lincoln Town Car that was driving ahead of me. He crossed the centre line and appeared to be making a left turn onto a side street, but in fact he was making a very wide right turn into his narrow driveway. Unfortunately he didn't signal and when he had well crossed over the centre line, I started to go around him on the right, because there was enough room for a whole car to drive by. But then he made a hard right turn into his driveway and we collided since I was past the point of no return. It was still totally my fault as I should have waited for him to complete his action.
My bike hit his passenger door and bent the forks, which the insurance appraiser said would cause it to be a total write off. The other driver only had liability on his car and had only bought the vehicle 2 weeks ago! He was a really nice guy and we joked that we should have drinks together after this is all sorted out. Anyways since it was all my fault, at least his car will be covered for repairs and he has kept me updated along the way that things are working out good for him - all things considered. My premium will go up due to the at-fault claim, so it's not worth it to save my bike due to age and mileage and cost to repair. I'll take the payout and maybe buy a fancy bike I've always been dreaming of later in the season. No injuries to me since I wasn't going that fast and I always wear full gear, other than a nice deep cut down to my shin bone that was just above the top of my boot. Needless to say, I was disappointed, because the black VStrom was the perfect bike for this trip.
The bike I was going to ride down:
So now what? Is this a sign? Should I cancel the trip and stay home and do some gardening? Or help my wife take care of our new puppy aka Jethro "Destroyer Of Nice Things" or rather Jethro Don't!
I recently bought a 2003 FZ1 in mint condition that I can ride down, but I only have a stock seat for it which will not work for such long days, so if I can get a good aftermarket seat, it will be perfect. I also have touring luggage & new rubber for it, so it seemed like the motorcycle gods were telling me that I should move on from the lowly Suzuki's and get down with the Yamaha's.
Strangely enough and just a week before I smacked my bike, a friend asked me what I was doing with my old orange VStrom. It has 160,000km on it and the last time I rode it was down to Deals Gap in July of 2019. After that trip, I bought the low mileage black bike and gave the orange one to my brother to practice with. For a variety of reasons he never rode it, so it just sat for 3 years. So when my friend asked about it I said for sure you can have it and we got it picked up and taken to his house only 4 days before I crashed the black one. It still rode fine and was just in need of some love to be fresh again.
When I crashed the black bike and was seriously thinking about taking the FZ1 down, I was having a lot of trouble getting a good aftermarket seat in time for this trip and wasn't looking forward to doing many long days on that stock seat. I told the new owner of my orange bike about my dilemma and he suggested I should take the orange bike to use for the trip. And once I come back, I can just give it to him to enjoy. Great idea! So with his help, I transferred most of the goodies from the black bike to the orange bike and I was prepped and ready to roll. Needless to say it was a very busy week before I left, with long days at work and long nights working on the bikes. Compared to my black bike, the suspension would suck, the brakes sucked and it burned oil, but it should do this trip just fine... I think. All prepped and ready to go - still looks pretty decent for 160k on it!
The ride down was going to be on pretty challenging roads and about 11-13 hours each day. Another rider from Buffalo wanted to join and ride these entire routes with me. What kind of madman wants to ride 5 days with me is anyone's guess, but I gave him fair warning of how I ride and how long the days would be. Riding one of these routes is not that difficult, but to do these day after day requires a little something extra. We talked over Zoom a few times and I found out that he rides a 2014 VStrom 1000, is an experienced rider, had the same GPS as me and was fine to eat at Subway for lunch!
Say hello to Harmut!
I filled up in the morning and thought... with gas prices rising so much lately, I should note how much gas is now and see just how much it goes up by the time I get home. It was $1.82/l when I left and $2.06 when I got home!
Day 1: Mississauga to Harrisonburg VA - https://goo.gl/maps/nDrL1FzUwDGkmYzu5 - 830km / 10:30hrs
We knew this was going to be the least pleasant day of riding. It was going to be raining from 10am onward, and around 5-10deg all day, so we didn't want a really long day being cold and wet. From a riding roads standpoint, this was also the least interesting day, but it still had a bunch of decent roads in it near the end. We would take the 219 down through NY and PA and then hop off in search of some different roads in the Virginia's. The goal was to just get as far south as possible and look forward to the next 4 days.
The two steeds:
Once we were south of Pennsylvania, the roads start to get much more interesting and if this was the least interesting day, this trip was going to be amazing. It was so refreshing to ride the nice roads of the Virginia's, which are remarkable for smooth pavement with great twisties and scenery. It almost felt like being in a deciduous rainforest at times.
One of the best things about riding down south is the pavement quality. While Ontario has some really nice scenic and twisty roads to ride, generally speaking the pavement quality is really poor, with frost heaves, potholes and tar snakes all over the place. It seems like in the Virginia's and in the Smoky Mountains there is a regular and significant investment in the road maintenance, so even really good quality roads are routinely paved over. The result is insanely twisty roads with flawless pavement:
It was quite cold. I think we were riding in temperatures around 2-3 degrees and the rain was pretty heavy at times. We made it to our first motel with a bit of time to spare and it was a great first day of riding overall. The views are pretty good too and the elevation changes start increasing with every mile south we ride:
Rode down between May 7-18 for 12 days of twisty madness. The goal this time was to ride down to the Ironhorse Motorcycle Lodge and meet up with a bunch of fellow VStrommers. Ideally I would spend 5 days getting there on mostly new-to-me twisty backroads, then ride around the Smoky's for 3 days and ride then home over 4 days on different backroads. In total I rode over 7000km along mostly twisty backroads and had the trip of a lifetime. Lot's of links to sweet roads mapped out throughout.
--------------
Before leaving on this trip I had researched a lot of great twisty mountain roads to explore (i.e. hidden gems) and plotted out some pretty intricate routes that stitched together every single good suggestion that came my way. I even ponied up the coin to buy the America Rides Maps which highlight a lot of local roads within the Appalachians that I wanted to explore, as opposed to riding the same old ones again and again, like the Back of The Dragon, The Snake, etc.... I prefer very tight and technical roads with steep elevation changes and banked corners, instead of fast moving sweepers. So now my routes were starting to look like this:
My bike was a 2010 VStrom 650 with around 75,000km. It was totally prepped and ready for the trip with full luggage, aftermarket suspension, Corbin seat, Hwy pegs, hardwired GPS and so much more. It simply ran like a dream. I had just installed a Delkevic exhaust on it which sounded really nice. But as fate would have it, I was heading out to grab a burger and on my way there I hit one of my neighbours who lives about 15 houses away! He had a massive Lincoln Town Car that was driving ahead of me. He crossed the centre line and appeared to be making a left turn onto a side street, but in fact he was making a very wide right turn into his narrow driveway. Unfortunately he didn't signal and when he had well crossed over the centre line, I started to go around him on the right, because there was enough room for a whole car to drive by. But then he made a hard right turn into his driveway and we collided since I was past the point of no return. It was still totally my fault as I should have waited for him to complete his action.
My bike hit his passenger door and bent the forks, which the insurance appraiser said would cause it to be a total write off. The other driver only had liability on his car and had only bought the vehicle 2 weeks ago! He was a really nice guy and we joked that we should have drinks together after this is all sorted out. Anyways since it was all my fault, at least his car will be covered for repairs and he has kept me updated along the way that things are working out good for him - all things considered. My premium will go up due to the at-fault claim, so it's not worth it to save my bike due to age and mileage and cost to repair. I'll take the payout and maybe buy a fancy bike I've always been dreaming of later in the season. No injuries to me since I wasn't going that fast and I always wear full gear, other than a nice deep cut down to my shin bone that was just above the top of my boot. Needless to say, I was disappointed, because the black VStrom was the perfect bike for this trip.
The bike I was going to ride down:
So now what? Is this a sign? Should I cancel the trip and stay home and do some gardening? Or help my wife take care of our new puppy aka Jethro "Destroyer Of Nice Things" or rather Jethro Don't!
I recently bought a 2003 FZ1 in mint condition that I can ride down, but I only have a stock seat for it which will not work for such long days, so if I can get a good aftermarket seat, it will be perfect. I also have touring luggage & new rubber for it, so it seemed like the motorcycle gods were telling me that I should move on from the lowly Suzuki's and get down with the Yamaha's.
Strangely enough and just a week before I smacked my bike, a friend asked me what I was doing with my old orange VStrom. It has 160,000km on it and the last time I rode it was down to Deals Gap in July of 2019. After that trip, I bought the low mileage black bike and gave the orange one to my brother to practice with. For a variety of reasons he never rode it, so it just sat for 3 years. So when my friend asked about it I said for sure you can have it and we got it picked up and taken to his house only 4 days before I crashed the black one. It still rode fine and was just in need of some love to be fresh again.
When I crashed the black bike and was seriously thinking about taking the FZ1 down, I was having a lot of trouble getting a good aftermarket seat in time for this trip and wasn't looking forward to doing many long days on that stock seat. I told the new owner of my orange bike about my dilemma and he suggested I should take the orange bike to use for the trip. And once I come back, I can just give it to him to enjoy. Great idea! So with his help, I transferred most of the goodies from the black bike to the orange bike and I was prepped and ready to roll. Needless to say it was a very busy week before I left, with long days at work and long nights working on the bikes. Compared to my black bike, the suspension would suck, the brakes sucked and it burned oil, but it should do this trip just fine... I think. All prepped and ready to go - still looks pretty decent for 160k on it!
The ride down was going to be on pretty challenging roads and about 11-13 hours each day. Another rider from Buffalo wanted to join and ride these entire routes with me. What kind of madman wants to ride 5 days with me is anyone's guess, but I gave him fair warning of how I ride and how long the days would be. Riding one of these routes is not that difficult, but to do these day after day requires a little something extra. We talked over Zoom a few times and I found out that he rides a 2014 VStrom 1000, is an experienced rider, had the same GPS as me and was fine to eat at Subway for lunch!
Say hello to Harmut!
I filled up in the morning and thought... with gas prices rising so much lately, I should note how much gas is now and see just how much it goes up by the time I get home. It was $1.82/l when I left and $2.06 when I got home!
Day 1: Mississauga to Harrisonburg VA - https://goo.gl/maps/nDrL1FzUwDGkmYzu5 - 830km / 10:30hrs
We knew this was going to be the least pleasant day of riding. It was going to be raining from 10am onward, and around 5-10deg all day, so we didn't want a really long day being cold and wet. From a riding roads standpoint, this was also the least interesting day, but it still had a bunch of decent roads in it near the end. We would take the 219 down through NY and PA and then hop off in search of some different roads in the Virginia's. The goal was to just get as far south as possible and look forward to the next 4 days.
The two steeds:
Once we were south of Pennsylvania, the roads start to get much more interesting and if this was the least interesting day, this trip was going to be amazing. It was so refreshing to ride the nice roads of the Virginia's, which are remarkable for smooth pavement with great twisties and scenery. It almost felt like being in a deciduous rainforest at times.
One of the best things about riding down south is the pavement quality. While Ontario has some really nice scenic and twisty roads to ride, generally speaking the pavement quality is really poor, with frost heaves, potholes and tar snakes all over the place. It seems like in the Virginia's and in the Smoky Mountains there is a regular and significant investment in the road maintenance, so even really good quality roads are routinely paved over. The result is insanely twisty roads with flawless pavement:
It was quite cold. I think we were riding in temperatures around 2-3 degrees and the rain was pretty heavy at times. We made it to our first motel with a bit of time to spare and it was a great first day of riding overall. The views are pretty good too and the elevation changes start increasing with every mile south we ride:
