And we can do a day ride another day that's not as far, is more focused on back roads and that is more explicitly a training ride so everyone's expectations are in line. It'd be good experience for him to ride in a group of 4 ...

Ok, looking at the map, the meeting place will have to be someplace around 66 and 81. I am shooting for a 9:30 meet up there. That will give us time to get out to Seneca Rocks with ease. 4 miles south on 81 we will leave the slab and hit 55 which is highly rated by my friend Greg (the guy Yermo and I stayed with last year on the way back from the dragon). If it sucks, we can always find somewhere else to go.

I plan on waking Rob up and getting to his house in Fairfax at 8ish so we can easily make it to 66/81 junction. But, I'm flexible with time. Just don't want to be hauling ass home in the dark if I can avoid it. My hope is we can get out there around lunch so we can have a leisurely afternoon.

Don't worry, I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere. This is supposed to be fun DAMMIT!

Yermo, it's 74 miles to the 66/81 junction for you, 58 miles for me so I'll give you an additional 16 minutes of slack.

Hopefully I can sleep the night before and get up on time ... and then there's getting Duncan out the door.

Hmm, yeah, Duncan...

Maybe a couple shots of leap frog for you? LOL

Seriously, if we get a later start, we'll go to plan b...if we had a plan at all...

Just tell me what time I gotta be where--and I'll be there

That's the spirit D!

You'll have to work that out with Yermo so you both get to the meet up point by 9:30ish.

I will do some checking and find some place reasonable to meet that has COFFEE and food.

Yea, I"ll be needing coffee by then. My guess is we have to leave my house at 08:00 to get there by 09:30.

Oh well, good practice for me I guess.

Ok I got it. There is a Denny's just south of 81 on route 11.

119 Hite Lane
Strasburg, VA 22657

(540) 465-9090

Shoot for 9:30 but if we are all there by 10 I would call that success.

You can tell we're all getting old. In the old days it would be like this:

"Wanna go for a ride?"

"Sure. Where?"

"Meet at Dead Man's Corner at noon."

"Cool. That new guy comin' with his R80? I wish I had an awesome bike like that."

Seriously Ian...Look at all this planning for something that will more than likely get rained out!

[Cue the story about Yermo causing torrential rains...]

OK, I'll plan on being at YML's on my bike, ready to go at 8:00 AM on Sunday.

Speaking of weather, has anyone checked lately? Irene may be hitting the DC area Saturday night/Sunday with lots of RAIN:

1

So we'll need to watch the weather, possibly up to the last minute...

As official ride organizer, I've been feverishly scanning weather.com. My contingency plan...sit at home and watch tv whilst eating a pepperoni pizza. I've been told I need to see Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Oh, and there will be beer involved.

I've got my fingers crossed that Yermo is due some positive ju ju and that Irene will get a nice blow job from the cross country winds.

Fallback plan. I should have the Keith Code Superbike School videos by then. We could watch them.

Hmmm. Not looking good at all:



100mph winds possible. Looks like I need to head down to the marina and prepare the boat.

Then again, as a recent whiskey commercial points out, bad decisions make for good stories.

The ladies have canceled their trip to Rehoboth due to the storm. I still hold out hope that this thing will change track enough to ride on Sunday but it is fading with each new weather service report.

Definitely make a decision in the next day/day and a half.

Well, the Beeotch is getting weaker and drifting east. Maybe there is still hope. Stay tuned...

Ok sports fans, things are looking better each report.



Now they are saying it will be a category 1 with 85 mph winds and well past us by Sunday early AM. If this trend continues, this could be a whole lot of nothing. I'm still holding out hope for a Sunday ride.

I'm not so sure. Have you ever ridden in 50mph winds? Even 40mph wind is tiring.

My concern will be for debris in the road, standing water, wind, etc. I think riding immediately after a hurricane, even a Category 1, is probably ill advised.

Of course this is mitigated by how far West we'll be. I guess we can play it by ear.

Updated today:

Agree with you regarding the debris...having experienced a few hurricanes. However, my local forecast is only saying 30% chance of rain for Sunday and it has been trending down. I think Saturday will be a fairly rotten day but Sunday is shaping up nicely. Much will depend on how hard we get hit Saturday. Also, we are slated to head significantly inland so hopefully things will be better out west.

Just gonna have to wait and see...

Ok, we have our first cancellation...Rob has bailed and not for the storm, well sort of...son was supposed to move into college on Saturday but that has been moved to Monday soooooooooooooo...

So I will send out a message (text, here, smoke signal, something) on Saturday night and we can make final decision. Since I'll most likely be the only one from VA, we can change plans and do a shorter ride if we go at all.

I've been keeping an eye on the weather, but it looks like we're in for rain and strong winds in the morning. As time progresses the forecast gets better.

On my end, my big concern is the boat. I've been getting conflicting reports as to what the storm surge will be like. Some say 2 feet. Others 4 to 8. Anything over 4 and I'm likely to have problems which I would need to attend to promptly.

Looking at the weather now, we are just about in the thick of it and it's not bad at all. From what I see, we'll be out of it by late tonight early tomorrow morning. If you can't ride due to the boat (or any other issue) I can ride up and help you possibly.

Need to get out because I just got done balancing both wheels and doing some other maintenance so I need to see if I got everything done right. I'm quite nervous about the balancing bit.