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The meeting location was about thirty (30) miles from my house in Alexandria and it took about 30 minutes for me to get there. I always leave home a bit earlier than I need to, that’s’ allows time for me to take that wrong turn and still make it the start on time. Well no need this time. The map quest directions were right on and I got the start around 9:15 or so. Two riders were there when I arrived. Introductions were made and we all got coffee from Starbucks and waited for others to arrive. Well riders begin arriving until we had a total of twelve riders. Most riders rode cruisers of some type; Honda VTX’s, Yamaha Star’s , a few sport bikes and of course me on the ST1300. Rollout was at 10:15 as we head out to Hagerstown, MD. The ride to Hagerstown was pretty easy as the group cruised up route 15 going through Leesburg and other small communities as we ascended into the mountains as we crossed into Maryland. One of the things I found interesting while riding my motorcycle is I’m riding roads that I have ridden on bicycle rides over the last there years I have been in the area. I notice that all of a sudden I in an area I am familiar with, you know I get the I have been here before I feeling. Then, I realized I had ridden the roads with one of the bicycle clubs I ride with. The first stop was in Fredrick, MD at a McDonalds for a bathroom break. It’s amazing how fast coffee pass through you when being shaken up on the bike. While at the stop in Frederick Chas give us more information on the route and how we going to get to Hagerstown.
From Frederick we headed to Hagerstown via hwy 40 west, a very scenic two lane road with lots of up and down, mostly up as preceded on to the lunch stop. The lunch stop was at a TGI Fridays where spent an hour or so eating lunch and engaging in general conversation, about motorcycles, what else.
The route back was much more challenging that the route
up. The biggest challenge was the wind, it had picked to what seemed like to
me 20mph or more and the gusts were much a lot higher than that. Since it
was getting late we hopped on I-81 south to I-70 west to pick route 522
south which was the scenic route to Winchester, through a portion of West
Virginia, but with the blowing so hard it just pushed the bikes around
pretty good that it made for a new learning experience for me. Cruising down
the interstate and get hit by a blast of a 20+ mph side wind blast is
discomforting to say the least and since we were still up on the mountain it
appeared the winds were constant and the gust made things really
interesting. We picked up route 522 in Hancock, MD, I think, and headed
south toward Winchester. The
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This
week’s motorcycle ride was with the Northern Virginia Meet-up group. I found
the group on the internet; the group is run by Chas, the leader, and Hoang,
the tail gunner and is a good group of guys and ladies form the Maryland and
Virginia area. Twelve (12) riders showed up for the ride from all over the
northern Virginia and Maryland area. We all meet at the Starbuck in
Chantilly. The meet-up time was at 9:45 with rollout at 10:00.
group
formation was pretty loose and the rear group, the one I was in, took the
first route 50 exit off of route 522. We rode through Winchester looking for
route 50 east to head back to the Chantilly area, but we didn’t see it. Not
sure if we missed it the exit or what. We stop t regroup while Hoang called
Chas and left him a voice message to left him know that all was well and
that the lead group should forge on and the rear group would do the same.
So, the new plan was to take route 7 back, which was a pretty good route, a
two lane through Winchester, Berryville, Purcellville and Leesburg where we
would pick up the Loudon County Parkway. At the parkway Hoang, our tail
gunner left the group to get on Prince Williams County Parkway to get go to
Manassas. Jim and I took the Loudon County Parkway back to route 50 to the
meet-up start location. From there, Jim pulled off to get gas and I headed
home. The evening traffic is always a heavier than the morning traffic, but
I still made it home in about 30 minutes arriving home around 6:30.
