A friend and I had planned on going up into Pennsylvania to do the newly published BDR-X ride there this week. And then he went out last week and bought a new Kawasaki Z900RS retro styled naked bike. Hey, I'm flexible so we met up in Front Royal and did something I've not done in many years - paid the fee to ride Skyline Drive. It's a fine road but had more traffic and more LEO presence than the BRP. They have to pay those rangers so it costs $25/bike to ride it - 105 miles from Front Royal start to the BRP start. Been there, done that, won't do that again for a long while. We rode the BRP down and had planned to go as far as Roanoke before stopping for the night. Just a few hundred yards from the Peaks of Otter my buddy's rear tire started going flat so we pulled in to the parking lot there - wood screw in the tire.
It was a pretty funny scene because there were a number of other motorcyclists that saw him ride in on an obviously flat tire and they all came over and crowded around with advice and dire warnings while I was getting out my plug kit. There was a running background dialog from several people about what I was doing as I plugged the tire and got out my air pump. I pumped up the tire and spit on it and, seeing no bubbles, the assembled crowd all dissipated satisfied that they had done their good deed for the day. My buddy stood there looking at his brand new bike with it's brand new tire with my plug in it and announced that we should stay here tonight and go get a new tire tomorrow. I get it, new bike with less than 400 miles on it. I'd probably replace the tire as well but I'm pretty sure that plug would have finished the ride and gotten him home at the end.
The next morning the tire was still round so we rode down in to Lynchburg to the Kawasaki shop there that took him right in and got a new Dunlop RS4 mounted up for him and we were off by noon headed back west. After a stop at Natural Bridge (he'd never seen it) we ended up at the Foot of the Mountain for some lunch before heading on on our favorite route on Craigs Creek Rd over to 311. We wound our way up to 39 over to Marlinton where we stayed at the somewhat nasty Marlinton Motor Inn.
We woke up Thursday morning to constant rain so we started north on 219 hoping the roads would be dry by the time we got to 250 - not to be - so we just continued on 219 up to 50 and rambled on back home by dinner time. 3 days, about 900 miles, and the burning question, "Why don't I do this way more often?"
It was a pretty funny scene because there were a number of other motorcyclists that saw him ride in on an obviously flat tire and they all came over and crowded around with advice and dire warnings while I was getting out my plug kit. There was a running background dialog from several people about what I was doing as I plugged the tire and got out my air pump. I pumped up the tire and spit on it and, seeing no bubbles, the assembled crowd all dissipated satisfied that they had done their good deed for the day. My buddy stood there looking at his brand new bike with it's brand new tire with my plug in it and announced that we should stay here tonight and go get a new tire tomorrow. I get it, new bike with less than 400 miles on it. I'd probably replace the tire as well but I'm pretty sure that plug would have finished the ride and gotten him home at the end.
The next morning the tire was still round so we rode down in to Lynchburg to the Kawasaki shop there that took him right in and got a new Dunlop RS4 mounted up for him and we were off by noon headed back west. After a stop at Natural Bridge (he'd never seen it) we ended up at the Foot of the Mountain for some lunch before heading on on our favorite route on Craigs Creek Rd over to 311. We wound our way up to 39 over to Marlinton where we stayed at the somewhat nasty Marlinton Motor Inn.
We woke up Thursday morning to constant rain so we started north on 219 hoping the roads would be dry by the time we got to 250 - not to be - so we just continued on 219 up to 50 and rambled on back home by dinner time. 3 days, about 900 miles, and the burning question, "Why don't I do this way more often?"
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