The "WV RAT Gathering" was a loosely organized gathering of mid-Atlantic Triumph owners on May 20 - 22 (Fri/Sat/Sun). The plan was to ride to Canaan Valley Resort on Friday, put in a full day of riding on great WV roads on Saturday, have a group dinner/party Saturday night, and take the long way home on Sunday. The Canaan Valley Resort is a campus-style facility with rooms in the lodge and several adjacent buildings as well as offering cabins and camping on site. Great place for a bike rally IMO. By my count, 37 people showed up from six states and a good time was had by all. Here's my story...

Six of us from Pittsburgh were attending the Gathering. A large storm front moved through the area Thursday night and early Friday morning, so we delayed our start to 10am to let the worst of the rain get past us. As it turned out, three of us rode down together: myself (Sprint RS), Junior (Daytona 955) and MaddJack (Speed Triple). Ted (Sprint ST) and his brother (Ninja 250) were leaving around lunchtime. Greg (Sprint RS) was going to join us for the ride down, but couldn't make the 10am start.

The three of us met in Irwin, PA (on Rt 30) in full rain gear as it was still lightly raining. We took back roads to New Stanton and Mt. Pleasant, then followed PA 31 east toward the Laurel Highlands. We veered off onto Bear Rocks Rd at the top of the hill past PA 982 to avoid the straight and boring parts of 31 and 381. There's something soothing about riding in farmland on a rainy day, but being dry and comfortable. The scenery was great with the interesting light mixing with the vivid greens of spring. Bear Rocks Rd led us to PA 381 just north of Normalville.

381 was repaved last year and was a lot of fun as it swooped and turned up and down the ridges. It passes Fallingwater, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright home, as well as Ohiopyle, a popular white water rafting area. 381 gets pretty beat up south of PA 40, so we took 40 east for a few boring miles and headed down 281 south into West Virginia. 281 turns into WV 26 once you cross the state line. WV 26 is a mellow road through farm country north of I68/Bruceton Mills, but offers a wonderful stretch of sweepers south of Bruceton Mills to the town of Kingwood.

We turned east onto WV 7 in Kingwood and followed that to Terra Alta. First time for me on this stretch of road and it was great. Kingwood to Terra Alta is a long uphill climb with lots of fun turns. Highly recommended. The wind was very strong and gusty once we got up the mountain. Made for a bit of adventure fighting the wind on the left turns and being blow over on the right turns. We took Aurora Pike south from Terra Alta to the town of Aurora on WV 50. Aurora Pike a nice country road with pretty good pavement through a mix of farms and woods. We ate lunch at Melanies Family Restaurant in Aurora, across the street from Cathedral State Park. Gotta love the little Mom-and-Pop restaurants. Much more interesting than chain restaurants or fast food.

After a good hot lunch, we continued south via WV 24 and WV 219 through the Monongehela National Forest. Now we're getting to the good stuff. 219 is a fun road for most of its length in West Virginia. This northern section has lots of nice sweepers through the forest. We picked up 32 south in Thomas, and were just outside the town of Davis, maybe 10 miles from the resort, when we made a left on WV 93. We never take the direct route :-)

WV 93 is probably a nice road, but I have no idea what it's like even though I rode it. We got into light fog/mist on the way over the mountain on 219, but it got seriously thick a few miles up 93. 30 MPH intently focusing on the lines on the road, can't see Jack (literally), sphincter-puckering fog. The few times the fog eased enough to see beyond the shoulder of the road showed we were riding past alpine marshes and meadows. Probably very scenic on a nice day. Eventually there were no painted lines on the road and the pucker factor went higher. Then, out of the mist, appeared a BP gas station. We pulled in to warm up and take a mental break. Turns out we were in the aptly named Mt Storm. While talking to the clerk we found out that we passed a lake, a dam and a power plant. Aside from going past a concrete wall (the dam?), we had no clue.

A grizzled old trucker with a pony tail told us that the fog was gone a couple miles down the road (all tight switchbacks) and was clear to Petersburg. He warned us to be careful on the way to Canaan Valley and to keep our eyes peeled for deer. He then went on about how he "cut one in half with a Sportster". Totalled the bike, but he got off OK. Little did I know...

Here's a pic at the BP in Mt Storm about 2 in the afternoon. That's Junior on the left with the yellow Daytona, my Sprint RS in the middle, and Jack with his Speed Triple on the right:

Jack must have been a Boy Scout as a young lad. He's always prepared:

So we crawled down WV 42 towards Petersburg, and sure enough the fog went away and we could see again. Too bad the road was a bumpy mess heading down the hill as it's quite twisty. Once at the bottom of the hill, the pavement was fine, the fog was gone and good fast sweepers in the country took us to Petersburg.

Our plan was ride "Smoke Hole Road", but given our late start and the fog at higher elevations, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor. So we decided to take 28 south to Seneca Rocks, then take 33 west to 32 north to the resort. 28 is a pleasant enough road, but not particularly technical between Petersburg and Seneca Rocks. We stopped at Seneca Rocks for the obligatory photo with the rocks in the background. If you like to hike, there is a tourist trail that goes up to an observation platform on the north peak of the rocks (the peak on the left). Allow at least two hours, maybe more, to hike up and back with some time enjoying the view at the top.

I'm a rock climber and have been climbing at Seneca for nearly 20 years. It's about as wide as a picnic table at the top of the south peak (on the right). The summit is almost 1000 feet above the parking lot and it drops off just as dramatically on the back side. On a nice day you can see the tiny figures of climbers on the summit. None up there today though.

We finally got our first bit of dry road between Seneca Rocks and Harmon on WV 33. Aside from some light rain in the early morning and the wet fog by Mt Storm, it really didn't rain much the whole day, but roads were always wet. I guess we got lucky. That part of 33 is good fun, as is 32 north up to Canaan Valley Resort. Nice sweepers and a few tight turns up and down the mountains. We arrived at the resort just before 5pm, checked in, and went in search of the bar :-)

RATs started rolling in and soon the lounge was full of Triumph riders BS'ing and unwinding with a few tasty adult beverages. Reasonably priced too. After several hours of unwinding (with dinner in there somewhere), I retired for the night sometime after 11pm since I had a full day planned for Saturday.

Saturday dawned clear and cool with frost on the bikes at sunrise. I took several pictures of the resort, got a shower and prepared to leave at 8am. The resort was nice enough to arrange for a hose and some towels to clean the worst of the grime off the bikes since everyone had a wet ride on Friday. No one else showed up for the 8am start, so Junior, MaddJack and I took off for a full day of twisty fun at 8am sharp. The resort was quite scenic as the sun came up:

We decided to improvise a bit and hit some of the roads we skipped due to the late start and rain on Friday. So we headed back past Seneca Rocks and north toward Petersburg. We made a right onto Smoke Hole Road and followed it to its end at 220. Smoke Hole Road is a narrow, twisty country road (no painted lines) in the middle of nowhere with very good pavement. It basically runs north/south, paralleling 28 and 220 through the forest. Highly recommended, but be on the lookout for the occasional car coming the other way taking its half out of the middle. I would suggest riding it in the afternoon rather than morning so that the shaded sections with tree spooge (yup, that’s the official name) can dry out. Here are a few shots from Smoke Hole Road:

From there, we took 220 south into Franklin to pick up 33 east. The section of 33 from Elkins, WV to Harrisonburg, VA is nice overall, but the really good part is between Brandywine and Harrisonburg. Once you start the climb, 33 twists and climbs up the mountain to the Virginia line, then offers a few miles of unrelenting 25 MPH switchbacks back down the mountain into Virginia. Great stuff. Probably worth running laps on. The biggest problem is traffic and I got stuck behind a conga line of slowpokes on the way down into Virginia.

We decided to wing it and continued on 33 toward Harrisonburg where we made a right onto 613 south. My hope was to eventually end up on 250, but I had left my maps of Virginia at the hotel since that wasn’t the original plan. We got a little lost in the farmland west of Bridgewater, but got directions at a little country store that got us over to 42. 42 is a scenic highway with nice sweepers down to where it meets 250. In fact, its non-numeric name is “Scenic Highway”. Imagine that…

Our journey continued west on 250 toward Monterey. This section of 250 had fresh pavement on it and was a blast. Once we got out of the flatlands and started climbing, there were lots of great twisties up to the summit. We stopped at the overlook, took a bunch of pictures of the stunning view, then raced down the other side toward Monterey for lunch. Wonderful section of road, one that I want to do again. Here's the view of the Shenandoah Valley from the overlook:

We got gas and lunch in downtown Monterey at a little restaurant just off 250. On our way back to the bikes, we met up with a bunch of people from Canaan Valley that had been riding south on 220 as well as Eric and Melissa from Virginia on their Tiger. Since we had lots of miles to cover, our little group left them and continued west on 250. The next section of 250 was a real letdown. Tar and chip the whole way through some nicely twisty road and beautiful scenery. Here's some of the scenery:

We bailed off 250 when we got to WV 28 and decided to visit the Cass Steam Railroad museum since MaddJack is a steam engine buff. WV 28 was a nice change from the tar/chip on 250. We picked up 66 to Cass which was also a nice road, with somewhat bumpy pavement in spots. When we got to the museum, we found out the train was on a chartered run and wouldn’t be back for a couple hours. The official “season” doesn’t start until Memorial Day weekend when they run tours and give train rides. We looked around the museum for a few minutes then headed back to the bikes.

We continued on 66 west, past Snowshoe ski resort, toward 219. We were told that 219 around Marlington was very good, so we took 219 south and were not disappointed. We managed to get past most of the slow traffic and had a fun ride. The reports were right: 219 north and south of Marlington should be on your “must do” list for WV roads. My bike turned over 30K miles while running the twisties into Marlington. I was going to stop and take a picture of the odometer, but I was having too much fun. Maybe I’ll take a picture at 50K miles…

My goal for the day was to ride WV 20. It looked good on the map and reports were that it was worth seeking out. To get there from 219, we took WV 39 west past Richville to the intersection with WV 20 north in Fenwood. WV 39 was a very pleasant surprise. It starts out twisty near 219, then turns into wonderful sweepers in the forest. There are no side roads or houses or anything. Just perfect pavement though scenic national forest. Great fun until we hit Richville, where we re-entered civilization. We stopped at a pond along WV 39 for a quick pic:

WV 20 north of 39 was disappointing until we got to Webster Springs. The road was OK, but there was a fair amount of local traffic as we passed through several small towns. Once we got to Webster Springs, the traffic cleared out and we were faced with 55 miles of unrelenting twisties up and down the mountains. I was crying for my mamma by the time we got to Buchannon (jct 33). In hindsight, we should have taken a good break in Webster Springs, but I didn’t realize just how far we had to go and what intense riding it would be. We were all mentally and physically wasted by the time we got to Buchannon. I really need to do that road again when I’m fresh. Perhaps the finest bit of twisty road I’ve ever been on and I rode it like crap because I was spanked.

After a slow crawl through downtown Buchannon and a stop for gas and drinks, we got on 33 east to head back to the resort. WV 33 is four-lane highway between I79 and Elkins, goes through downtown Elkins, then becomes four-lane again for a while. I don’t think anyone minded the little bit of slab after the twisty overdose we just endured. 33 turned back into nice sweepers up and down the mountains to Harmon, where we caught 32 north to the resort with 426 twisty miles on the clock for the day.

Unfortunately, it was now about 7:40pm, and by the time we unloaded stuff, had a beer with a few other riders and asked about dinner, it was after 8pm. We found out a large group was meeting at 7:30 in the nice restaurant for dinner. Since we totally missed that, we just hit the pizza shop at the resort for dinner and joined up with the others for beers around the campfire.

Sunday dawned clear and warmer than Saturday. A few people were gearing up early to attend the Classic Bike Show in Germantown, MD, approximately 180 miles away. The five remaining riders from Pittsburgh (Greg left Saturday), decided to ride back together and hit some new roads as well as some old favorites. We got underway a little after 9am and took 32 north to Thomas, then 219 south to Parsons. Both roads offer nice sweepers on good pavement in beautiful country. There is a line of large white windmills on the ridge on 219. We stopped there for a few pictures, then continued south on 219 to Parsons which includes several (6?) miles of downhill switchbacks.

From Parsons, we took 72 north to where it intersects WV 50. 72 is nice enough road, but only average compared to many of the miles we had done this weekend. South of Parsons, 72 is a very twisty road with lots of gravel and beat up pavement. Probably great fun on a dual-sport or GS bike, but not much fun on sportbikes. North of Parsons, it’s nice sweepers. North of WV 50, it parallels the Cheat River for nice views to go along with the nice sweepers.

We made a left to head west on WV 50 and stopped at the Cools Springs Park Exxon and General Store. Cool Springs is a definitive WV general store and a “must stop” kind of place. Just look for the giant plastic cow on the roof of the store. Besides the store, there is a “collection” of antique trains and farm equipment. To some it looks like a bunch of old rusted stuff in the woods. To others it’s a park. Worth a look around if you need a break. Very popular stop for the cruisers too. Here are a few pics of the infamous "Cool Springs Mega Mall":

After kicking around Cool Springs for a bit, we continued on 50 west to Bridgeport. The section of 50 from Cool Springs to Grafton is very nice and it’s pretty darn good from Grafton to Bridgeport too. After a small navigational SNAFU trying to get from Bridgeport to Shinston (I turned the wrong way on 19), we finally got to a more northerly section of WV 20 that I had never been on and wanted to ride. We stopped at a Subway for lunch before heading north on 20 towards New Martinsville (on the Ohio River).

This part of WV 20 had fair quality pavement (a bit bumpy), but some nice turns once we got a few miles west. The foliage was rather dense and it seemed like riding a ribbon of asphalt through a thick forest at times. It took a lot of concentration since you couldn’t see very far ahead.

I was in the lead, with MaddJack, Ted and Brad behind me. Junior had split off at Bridgeport to head home early. I caught a flash of brown to my left and realized that a doe was on a collision course with the left side of my bike. I barely had time to register that a Bad Thing was about to happen and the deer was upon me. Some survival instinct fired and I kicked it in the head/neck, like an uppercut with my foot, just as it was about to hit me. To my surprise, and the surprise of everyone behind me watching this unfold, I continued on upright like nothing had happened. I was told the deer appeared behind my bike, tumbling and sliding into a mud puddle on the shoulder. My leg took a good whack (hitting a deer at 50 MPH) and kinda hurt, but I didn’t think I had broken it. So I slowed to a stop at a driveway and realized I had survived my first Deer Encounter.

The rest of the group stops and we’re all amazed it’s not me laying in the ditch with a rashed up bike. My leg was sore, but I could walk and shift OK, so we turned around to see if the deer was still there. It was gone, but I was still proud of my Ninja kick to the head that probably saved me an expensive slide down the road. Bob Nixon’s near-death misadventure with a deer came to mind. I was really happy I was wearing riding boots with shin armor that took the brunt of the hit. I still had deer fur on my boot and riding pants when we stopped for gas a dozen miles later in New Martinsville. I was one lucky SOB.

We were now back on “home turf” and were taking familiar roads back home. We followed WV 7 east to Hundred which is one of the most fun sections of road in the area IMO. We crossed WV 250 in Hundred and continued on 7 to Blacksville, on the PA/WV border. Note that 250 north from Hundred to Moundsville is one of the best stretches of road I’ve ever been on. Great stuff that you have to do should you ever find yourself in the area. We took 218 north from Blacksville to Waynesburg, then 19 north to Washington, PA. 218 and 19 are pleasant roads with 19 being the better of the two. We were having a fine time, unwinding on less technical roads, just enjoying the afternoon. I continued home on 136 which is a nice little two lane country highway (I hate slab) while the others slabbed north on 79 to Pittsburgh.

All in all, a fun three days of riding with great roads, great company and decent weather. I ended up with 940 miles for the weekend, but considering that all but 30 miles of it was twisty two-lane, that was a full three days of riding. And I survived my first Deer Encounter…