We met in Manassas and rode out to route 211, over Skyline drive and on the next mountain range and then took this crazy little road called:

1

which ended up being some kind of unpaved forest service road which was simply beautiful. It wound it's way up the mountains past beautiful vistas, through remote valleys, past abandoned and not so abandoned shacks. All in all a beautiful ride.

There was some commenting about "dual purpose" and how the bikes we were riding, with the exception of Milner's, were not meant for this, but I figured bikes were meant for riding and we were in fact riding, so ....



Rob mentioned he was having some issues with keeping the rear wheel from spinning on the Ninja. Josh seemed to think his suspension was less than idea. Yun was concerned about mud on his beautiful bike. Milner mentioned his wife had said she didn't believe he would take his bike off-road. I didn't have the heart to tell him that this was, in fact, a road.



It seemed like any small road we took ended up being "pavement ends ahead".



We stopped on a small road next to a 10 ton weight limit bridge, always a good sign. Unfortunately the bugs were a bit overwhelming.



I doesn't look that dirty to me, but what do I know.



In the end there are more roads to explore, many of the unpaved but we leave that for another time ...



(well, truth be told, that's the way we came, but I thought it was a good photo).

We'll have to do a ride like this again.

Good job, Yermo. Why, those roads look much smoother than the ones I grew up on and I dare say the Monster would have had no objections. Those are some fine roads!

Gotta keep everyone honest, you know.

I didn't have the heart to tell them about the roads you and I went on down near the Gap, especially after Milner said he wouldn't have wanted to take his Monster on these roads.

Then again, I do regularly tell the story of camping in the gawdawful cold.

You should start planning the overnight trip now. Say... November? Along Skyline Drive?

Only if you fly out to join me.

They were beautiful roads. The only real issue with the Ninja was that one road we went on that had been slicked up by the rain, and that was really more of a tire issue (not exactly a LOT of tread surface to work with ) It did take a while to rinse all the mud out, so much had been spun up that it got everywhere inside LOL. I doubt the big GS even noticed that the road transitioned from pavement to hardpack...I think it would have felt even more at home leaving the road and driving up the stream bed Clearly I need to get a weekend KLR

See, that's where the creek crossings come in. If you can get one at the end of the dirt section, you can wash off all that mud!

Mind you, Yermo's working with shaft drive, so he doesn't have to worry about messy chains and sprockets. Evil bastard...

EDIT: Yermo, I'm seeing Edit links for posts on this page that are not mine. Other threads are fine.

Naw, you don't need no KLR. They were always tellin' me that I needed knobbies on the Beloved Blue Oil Burner, but 400+ miles on worse than what we rode is no problem.

Next time we can do some hill climbing and cross a few rivers. We'll invite Ian out on his Monster to show us all how it's done. (Actually some of the fire trails Ian and I went on down near Deal's Gap back in the day were actually quite challenging. I remember one steep muddy hill that got me a bit nervous at one point ....)

I'll have to check. I think I made you an admin at some point ...