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August 20^th, 2008
Don’t Start Me Talkin’

muse@bikerenews.com

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Waking up earlier in yet another motel on one my treks through Virginia, I wanted to get an earlier start. After a couple of donuts, I was on the bike and riding through Luray looking for CO-675. After missing it three times, I realized that the first two blocks were actual another county road.

With my mistake corrected, I headed for Kings Crossing. My goal was to document the official population of Kings Crossing (from a street sign). Will I can tell you that it is in double digits, but not by much. Completing the first stop of the day in less than 30 minutes, I decided that I would ride up to Woodstock and catch the beginning of VA-42 to ride south. This would keep me off of I-81 all the way to Lexington.

There is only one thing to say about VA-42 - FIND THE TIME TO RIDE IT!! I started south on VA-42 around 7:30 AM. For most of my ride, there was not a car in front of me or behind me. The road was curvy. The weather was cool. The ride was fantastic.

There was one bit of excitement during this ride. Out of the corner of my left eye, I could see something approaching. The first thing I noticed was a big Bambi Brown Eye. In a split second, I heard hoofs dancing on pavement and realized I was engaged in a foot race with a deer. The deer was determined to cut across my path. At 55 mph, I didn’t want to go into a slide, so I lightly tapped the brakes. This allowed the deer to pass in front of me by inches. It was over before I realized I came to being another deer hits rider statistic. As a footnote, during this four day trip, I saw four adult deer and one fawn lying beside the road. Of course, they lost out to cars. The results would have been different with me and my motorcycle.

With my head rotating back and forth for the rest of the morning, I proceeded to Goshen (intersection of VA-43 and VA-39) to discover the name of the local convenience store. I then headed south on VA-39 to I-81. I followed I-81 to Salem. VA-311 took me to Catawba where I found CO-785 and located McDonalds Mill (the town, not the hamburger store).

A quick note of the street address for the McDonalds Mill Methodist Church, and it was back on CO-785 to Christiansburg via CO-723. An interesting note about CO-785 was that I passed more bicyclists than cars. I don’t know if the close proximity to Blacksburg makes this a scenic bicycle route of choice for the local community, but I was so happy to be out and about (and not done in by a rouge deer) that I waved at all of them.

I rode I-81 a little south to Dublin and I took VA-100 up to its intersection with VA-42. I only hoped it would be as good as my ride earlier in the day. VA-42 did not disappoint. I crossed under I-77 and road VA-42 all the way to Saltville. Another great ride on a secondary road in western Virginia.

I got back on I-81 and traveled to Bristol to catch US-58 heading west. Now this next section turned into something like the twilight zone. First of all, as I was riding along US-58, a car coming from the other direction came to a stop to make a left turn into a gas station. After making the stop, they SLOWLY turned into the gas station in front of me. A quick squeeze on the brakes and a little fish tail action, I was able to pass behind the car. The motorcycle rider that was behind the car just shook his head as I rode pass.

The next thing to happen (or almost didn’t happen) was trying to find CO-614. While there was a side road that connected with CO-614, I missed it completely. I ended going about a ½ mile further down the road, and that section of CO-614 was gravel. Knowing that VGT couldn’t be wrong, I made the turn and headed north. After locating the Mendota United Methodist Church, I decided to follow CO-614 up to Alternate US-58.

The only problem is that I didn’t notice that CO-614 wasn’t connected all the way. I discovered this after some more gravel and ending up in a driveway to a farm. I was committed now (or maybe I should have been committed). I was not going to backtrack to US-58. Well after some more gravel and a couple of unmarked paths, I ended up on CO-802 that did intersect with Alternate US-58.

I rode down to Abingdon and found a motel on the south side. After 468 miles, I could go on talking about my adventures in motorcycle rider’s heaven and the twilight zone, but to quote Sonny Boy Williamson II,

Don’t start me talkin’, I’ll tell everything I know. I’m going to break up this signifyin’, And, somebody got to go.

That’s enough for now. Check in next week for the end of VGT 2008 and a little side trip I added to the weekend.

Ride Safe

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