The Ride » Citgo

July 4th, 2008 by Jarrod

First Moto-Adventure! Part 1.

I missed a week of blogging because I was on my Tiger and didn’t get the time to type up an e-mail, label my pictures and send them off.

So here I am armed with Microsoft Word and pictures of my ride to Virginia with my best bud, Phil. I’m going to describe this adventure in a few stages, starting with getting ready …

When we looked at the IndyCar schedule, we figured that if any of the trips were going to be the “Long One,” it was going to be Richmond. About 11 hours on Google Maps, a solid mix of highway, mountains and a great destination — an IndyCar Series race — we figured that this would be the one.

In preparation, we needed to pick up a few items. Phil purchased his saddle-box set, and we both picked up rain gear and air pants for the ride. We knew that there was a chance of rain and wanted to be prepared. After all, half of riding the motorcycle is being prepared!

We met at Starbucks located on Monument Circle, downtown Indianapolis. I was running a few minutes late because I wanted to pick up some ear plugs at CVS. That was a terrible idea because the plugs that I got were enormous and caused serious ear pain the entire ride there. We finally rolled out at 8:30ish after a quick stop at CITGO, an IndyCar team sponsor, and hit the road.

The ride wasn’t that bad. When you know that you have a long day ahead of you, you really don’t get anxious to get there. We made our first stop between Cincinnati and Lexington. Our plan was to stop at every state line and take a picture in front of the big “Welcome to this state” sign, but we missed a few on the way down. First off, when traveling around Cinci, you hit three different states in 30 minutes. When we saw the Ohio sign, we were already underneath it and surrounded by semis. When we got to the Kentucky state line, we were on a bridge, so we skipped that one too!

Fast forward to West Virginia, not a lot happened in Kentucky. Once we got into Charleston, we had made the decision that we were going to dip off the highway and travel along the river. We were very excited about this. While we were filling up, a men’s soccer team called The Crash, or something, pulled up. First off, we are in West Virginia, and second, these guys were playing hardcore girly techno! Not the combination we expected.

Off through the country, we anxiously waited for the twisties that everyone talks about in West Virginia. Well, apparently they weren’t on Highway 61. Just small town after small town instead! Then we changed plans and dumped off to Highway 60. After about 10 miles of this, we thought, “We got this all wrong!” So we stopped at the Kawika Falls. Phil then said, “Watch, in a mile, the roads are going to get really good.”

He was not serious, but he was lucky. In 2 miles, we hit a stretch of road that took us about three hours to complete. It was awesome!! So awesome that we went through one section and turned around and did it again! Along the way, we stopped and took a picture of this VW Bug that was crashed into the side of an airplane hangar-looking thing and a green hippo on the top of a building!

Let’s just say that this stretch of road made our trip. Once we got to I-64, we stopped for gas and had a BBQ roast beef sandwich. Then we hopped back on the highway and headed out. Not too much to say about this stretch, only that it was fun on the highway, and we were able to stop and take a picture at the Virginia sign. We stopped at BP for one last fill-up and were in Virginia in about 1.5 hours. Once we got to the track, we dismounted, took off our gear, grabbed some beers and walked off the stiffness!