Back of the dragon and BRP

[fudge12]

http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/rarely-is-the-question-asked-is-our-children-learning-brp-and-back-of-the-dragon-with-my-teenager.1181445/

Sorry, I'll try to drag everything across to here when I get time but for now if you're interested just go look on ADVrider.  Short story is that my son (on a buell blast) and I (on the FJ1200) did a nice, 4 day, 886 mile loop down the blue ridge parkway, up the back of the dragon, then back following almost exclusively forestry service roads.  Great time had by all.

[FJmonkey]

Family time and riding together, looking forward to reading more of your ride report. 

[fudge12]

Ok, so since this is being done after the fact I can trim a lot of the fat out.  This is a pic of the planned route.  Note that plan is a harsh word for what I did, I had no particular schedule for the trip other than that I wanted to be at the hotels by dark.

[fudge12]

Last year I took my Versys to the Dragon, with a bunch of guys on scooters. Scads of fun. This year, my youngest son is a senior in high school, a couple months from 18, and soon to leave the nest. I had planned a trip for this year but life got in the way, and reading all of the awesome trip reports about people who threw caution to the wind and launched, I decided I was going anyway. And I was taking the boy out of school for a couple days, and he was going to ride.
Some background; I go through a lot of bikes. Buy them broken, fix it up, ride it a year, then swap for a different one, rinse hands repeat. 15+ in as many years. But the current trio has been planned for a while around this trip. My youngest son has his own bike, bought with his money (CM400) which is taken apart in the barn. My oldest son has his own bike, (VFR800) which is taken apart in the barn. He was unable to take time off work to go on this trip unfortunately. Figuring that they'd not be able to get their bikes running for the trip, I started trading/buying with that in mind.
So the in current stable is a buell blast, a Versys 650, and an FJ1200. I figured one way or another, these bikes would be able to carry us pretty much anywhere. The Versys is a long term (for me) bike, which just ticks all the right boxes. The FJ is something I've wanted since it came out 30ish years ago, and the blast is specifically a loaner/trainer bike. How many buddies do you have that "used to ride but...." I figured that I'd pick up a super cheap bike specifically so my geographically bikeless/maritally bikeless/new riders would have something to ride. The primary criteria for that was that if I saw it sliding past me shooting sparks, I wouldn't be thinking "but that's my favorite blah blah blah!" Turns out though that the blast is a fun little cuss and it easily gets its share of miles.
At this point, since the oldest one isn't going, the question becomes which two bikes to take? More on this later.
Current plan is to ride from northern virginia down 340 to the start of the BRP, and take that south for a bit then jump off to lexington for the night. Next day is back on the BRP down to Marion to the south end of the Back of the Dragon, hotel again for the night. Next day is the back of the dragon up to Tazewell, then on up to Covington on whatever road looks interesting, stay the night there. Final day is a leisurely ride back home via anything other than I81.

[fudge12]

2001 Buell Blast. Cost me nearly nothing due to trades and parts, and it's nearly indestructible. Boy tossed it down the road for about 30 feet after bouncing off a guard rail. All I had to do to fix it was to beat the rear pulley straight and replace a turn signal. Lots to be said for that. No fragile plastic, no chain, no pretensions of performance. Lots of torque, smooth at speed, gets a million miles a gallon. Mods are a Jardine exhaust, rejet, bigger windscreen, and the official Buell saddlebags (which hold a whole 7lbs each!)
1987 FJ1200, 11K miles awesome shape. heated grips, full electrics, GPS. Stiffened forks, new rear tire. Front tire low miles but 4 years old.
Boy has a thousand or two miles on the blast and a VFR700, and has ridden the Versys and the FJ 10 miles each, yesterday, to see if he'd fall over, which he didn't. He loved nearly everything about the vs. other than it's height, and loved the FJ's engine, but wasn't impressed with it's suspension. We plan on swapping bikes throughout the ride to avoid monkey-butt, so whatever bikes we bring will be shared. Is it stupid to put the boy on the twisties on a 1200cc bike that turns like a freight train? Is it fair to plunk his ass on the half-a-harley for 4 days? Will our intrepid explorer ever make up his mind about the bikes, or will we be deciding the day we leave? Stay tuned.


Verys enede up being a no-go due to shot throttle cables; you'd think they'd last more than 50K miles?  

[fudge12]

And for good measure here's one from last year, late October. It was unusually beautiful outside so I kept my daughter out of school for a sanity day, and we went for a couple hundred miles.
My kids for some reason still talk to me. I'm sure the "dad's too stupid to deal with" is coming soon enough, so I cherish the time we get to spend. My daughter has been my constant riding companion until recently when she was medically sidelined. Used to be so much fun to see the boys all trying to figure out who was getting picked up from middle school on a motorcycle, (the one cool vehicle in a line of minivans and suburbans) then the dropped jaws as the cute little blonde walked out with her helmet and hopped on. Once I got the intercoms it opened up an even more personal time since it was so strongly "our" time. I'm hoping some of that rubs off on the boy this trip. We have a good relationship, but we're still father and son so there's tension. I know this isn't 'his thing' but the time I have left with him is dwindling so I want to make the most of it. Assuming neither of us die, this'll be something he'll remember far into the future. Whether it's "what a miserable time" or "just this once dad wasn't such a colossal ass" is irrelevant.

[fudge12]

Taking the FJ means I only have a trunk and tank bag, no side bags. Tank bag is food, medicines, some charging equipment. Trunk gets everything else. Vacuum packed shirt, socks, undies together, one for each day plus an extra in case I shit myself. Extra pair of pants, same reason. Frog toggs for the boy just in case. Extra Sena 20 and 10 so we don't have to worry about charging.  Frogg toggs ended up being unnecessary since we had the oversuits.

[fudge12]

First day done. 175 miles, nice steady pace, today was a short day because the boy didn't get home till 330 this morning from a school thing. Blast is getting almost exactly 50mpg at speed, and significantly better on the parkway. There was a multi-mile backup at the northern entrance to skyline drive, glad we chose to skip that and take 340 instead. BRP wasn't very crowded, a fair number of bikes, only the occasional blue hair. Lots of temperature changes though, had to stop halfway and switch the summer for winter gloves. Even with the heated grips the summer gloves were just too cold. Only bike issues of note were that the blast decided it didn't like the amount of oil it had so it spewed about half a pint across the inside of the windshield, which the boy then tried to wipe so it smeared, which then got on his visor. When we stopped for gas we cleaned everything up, and the blast seems to have settled down. The FJ is doing great, only hitch is that if we get in stop traffic it gets hot, which makes it run lean, which causes the idle to raise, which causes it to get hot, etc.. probably a slight lean condition caused by a vacuum leak. I'll have to address that at some point, but not anytime soon. Boy did great, no problems and no complaints. Quite proud. We've done longer days before, but those were round trips. Going that far in one direction, knowing there are three more days of it is a horse of a different wheelbase.
Tomorrow is almost entirely parkway, dropping down into North Carolina for a very short time near the end. Gotta figure out what we're doing for lunch tomorrow. Tonight, we dine in Applebees!

[fudge12]

Oh yeah, since the eldest wasn't able to go the youngest grabbed his first gear riding suit which he and I got at fire sale prices at motorcyclegear.com, so we look like matching dorks. Can't say enough good about the suit though. Kind of like a 'stitch, but less than a third of the price. Not nearly as good, mind you, but not less than 1/3 as good. Waterproof, armored, easy to take on and off. I do feel like a card from the Disney version of "Alice in Wonderland" wearing it though.

[fudge12]

Today was the kind of day motorcyclists hope for. 60* when we left, little wind.left the hotel and applebees at around 9, went back to the brp and started fighting with the gps. More on that later. The BRP was almost deserted, the very few vehicles we did see almost to a one pulled over to let us past. We stuck strictly to or very near the speed limit, with I think out top speed on the BRP being maybe 51. There were places where I would have liked it to be faster, there were also corners that I didn't feel like taking that fast, so it all evened out. Hopped into Roanoke for gas, fought the gps, then back to the BRP. Took it all the way to just inside the NC border, stopping for lunch and a walkabout at Mabry's mill, at which my son ordered seemingly all the breakfast food they offered for $9. Then back on for more of the same all the way down to the music center where we stopped for a few minutes to check it out and listen to some bluegrass. My son wasn't a giant fan, but his tastes run from jazz to rap to Pink Floyd so he's ok.
The GPS took us off the BRP not long past the music center, through the bustling metropolis of Galax "World Capital of Hill Music". Hill music must not be doing so hot because it seemed to be composed mostly of trailer sales, pawn shops and churches. Big supporters of trump, if the signs were any indication. After that it dumped us on I81 all the way into Marion. Now I'm sure there's some bike that makes that not be a miserable event, but what a pile. For those of you that don't know I81 has speed limits at or above 70mph, and is a major north-south trucking route, through hilly country, with usually two lanes each direction. What all that boils down to is minivans doing 85mph mixed with big rigs doing the truck race where one guy's governor is set to 65, and another one is set to 65.004mph, and damn right the faster guy is going to pass. Going up a hill. So at the top, we're all doing 47mph, and the 'faster' truck has gained almost 7" on the slower truck.  Note, that's not a theoretical; it happened on this trip. I hate 81. Which brings me to Nuvi, the GPS. So I have a Zumo 550 on the Versys, which didn't come. The Zumo is a motorcycle GPS, the nuvi is a car GPS, and an older one at that. They think differently. I have the nuvi on the FJ because zumo's cost real money, and I don't know if it's worth $700 to get a motorcycle GPS when I can buy 8 regular units for the same price (with lifetime maps) and just throw them away when being on a bike kills them. Anyway, the nuvi thinks differently than the zumo. The zumo exactly followed the route I made in basecamp, which totally avoided 81. Nuvi, however, is almost ex-girlfriend desperate to get me onto 81. For the first 50 miles of the BRP she tried to get me to either turn around or take a side road, anything other than stay on the parkway. Then she finally accepted her fate and let me stay on it, but got me back in the end by taking 81 instead of coming west south of Marion then taking smaller roads north. What a pain, but at the same time I think of the 'met a man with no feet' saying and suck it up.
Boy did awesome, and the bikes are both still doing great. The blast is averaging just over 50mpg, the FJ is right around 44. The windscreen really takes a toll on the mileage. However, the blast had no problem keeping up on I81, which I was a bit surprised at. Did get blown around a bit by the wind and trucks, but the boy handled it like a champ. He's an excellent travel companion.

[fudge12]

Another GPS happy time was on 81, 11 miles from Marion, it decided that it was plugged into a computer so it quietly adjusted itself, gathered up all its tracks into GPx files, and blanked the screen. I had to reach behind, unplug it, then power cycle it. On i81, at 75mph. Grr.
Anyway now we're at the hotel about to venture out for food. Not America's good value inn; not America's really swell value inn. America's best value inn. The hotel that time forgot, at least since the mid 80s. Still, I was going for cheap. The lady at the front desk said 'you can't park directly in front of your room, just park there and walk back. I was thinking to myself 'lady, I'm 50% tempted to park IN my room tonight.
Edit: America's Greatest Value Inn is conveniently located directly next to the train tracks.

[fudge12]

"Those the gods will destroy they first make proud." Today was exactly like that, just backwards. The day started with the worst 'hot breakfast' in the worst hotel ever. Then we walked out to a nice sheen of ice covering the bikes. As soon as we took off the GPS started it's Heisenberg uncertainty principle, whereupon it would either show where I am or how fast I'm going. Whine whine, bitch bitch. Then we hit the back of the Dragon. What an insane road. 180* turns with multiple elevation changes each. Stretches of opposing 90* turns. An absolute awesome road. Not one person on the road with us, so we could take it at our pace which was fast enough to be fun but slow enough to not die. Then a short jaunt through tazewell, and a run down some great forest roads till we popped off on 100 down into radford for lunch. Oh, forgot the unexpected highlight: wolf creek Indian village and museum. Looked cool and we had extra time padded into the schedule, so we stopped. Jumped into a tour group with about 10 second graders (all girls but one boy!) and it was like being in the middle of a bunch of puppies. The tour guides, John and Delores, were awesome and my son and I got a second non-kid oriented tour after they kids left. Highly recommended! Anyway, then we took scenic highway (that's the name) to 100, south to radford to Sal's Italian for lunch. Also highly recommended. Anyway, Nuvi wanted to take us through Radford so we turned around, went over the top of the forest and dove back in. Best road of the day, high speed, s-curves, enough sight line to plan ahead, zero traffic. We dipped out to Blacksburg then Nuvi took us through teeny back roads and neighborhoods, and once again dropped us onto a forest road. We didn't stop for almost any pictures because the day was so perfect. There was nearly no traffic, and every vehicle we got behind to include the 18wheeler full of wood chips pulled over at the first opportunity to let us pass. We started getting deeper and deeper into the hills, the road went from two lanes to one and a half lanes to maybe a lane if you're generous about the edges, and I started having serious fears about where the GPS was taking us. Suddenly, Covington! We arrived, and are at the hotel. I don't want to jinx it, but today was nearly magic. Except my FJ has started making a fairly horrible noise, but I'm going to ignore it and see if it goes away on the way home tomorrow.

[fudge12]

Today's summary:  And no, I have no idea why some of the pics are right side up and some aren't.

[fudge12]

Ok, the final day was the longest seeming if only because we were so close to home. Came out in the morning to check on the bikes and mine had dumped a gallon of gas on the ground, which I ignored. The prior day the blast had lost a bolt holding the windscreen on, but I randomly had that exact sized bolt in my jacket pocket so we popped it in and moved on. Anyway, got a nice early start and immediately went to back roads. Honestly, it seems that in this area you can't hit a bad road if you tried (unless you went to I81)
The day started out in the 40s, and stayed around there the whole time. Bit chilly, but with the heated grips and monkey suits we were doing OK. Every road was beautiful, and we almost completely stuck to the service roads through the national forest. Again, almost no traffic and everybody we did see moved over to let us pass. After a while nuvi dropped us into some farmland north of Harrisonburg which was a nice change of pace. And you'll be happy to know, nuvi for some reason decided that we would, by god, take a dirt road so it put us on a short dirt road running between two larger roads for a few miles. And by dirt road I mean a used to be gravelly two-track that I honestly thought was a farmer's path to go between two fields. We passed a couple people on the road and the looks on their faces were priceless; I'm guessing they don't get many sportbikes on that road. Anyway, the farmland was a nice break, before we crossed under 81 and dove back into the forests. Here was our one fly in the ointment for the trip, we got stuck behind an octogenarian, his wife, and his dog that at no point would get closer than 10mph to the speed limit. Limit 45? He's doing 30. For miles. Finally it became legal to pass and off we went. Stopped in Front Royal to get gas, as the Blast has about a 125 mile range and we were right at that point. I skipped fuel this stop since I had plenty left in the FJ and figured if it's going to leak then the less I have the less mess in the barn later. Hopped into Cracker Barrel for a late lunch, and on the way out ran into a gentleman on a Vstrom 650 that had just finished a 6000 mile east coast ride and was headed to Pennsylvania, and had previously done a similar ride on the west coast on a PC800. Interesting fellow. We wished him the best and went on our way, arriving home pretty shortly after. I immediately did an oil change on the FJ and took an oil sample to send off to blackstone.

So, overall stats: 886 miles, 4 days, three nights. Bike problems were the lost bolt on the blast and the self-adjusting oil level, and the FJ developed that weird noise and fuel leak. I'll deal with those later. America's Best Value Inn is shite, nearly every road we were on was beautiful and empty, and the boy did awesome. I wasn't by any means pushing the FJ to it's or my limits, but I also wasn't doddering about like a butt-jewelry crowd rider, and there was more than one point at which I had to tell him to back off some because he was so hot on my trail. The blast was actually a pretty good bike for the trip, and the FJ survived although it was by no means a great bike for these roads; it's too long and the bias ply tires were less than encouraging.  However, the engine was awesome as I could come into a corner hot, nail the brakes, and torque out of it rather than downshifting.  There were many miles when the speeds varied from 15 to 65 and I left it in 4th. Blast has the same advantage, lots of torque and tall gearing. Alas I'm back to work and the boy is back to school so the daily grind returns.

[fudge12]

Woo!