WV RAT Gathering 2006
The second annual "WV RAT Gathering" was a loosely organized gathering of mid-Atlantic Triumph owners. This year it was held on September 15 - 17 to fill in the gap left by moving the Dragon Raid from September to May. 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, 31 people showed up from seven states and a good time was had by all. Here's my story...
Four members of the Pittsburgh RAT pack plus a couple associates, James from Morgantown and John from Virginia, planned to attend. Joel (Sprint ST) and I headed down on Friday morning. We met at the New Stanton Sheetz at 8am. The weatherman was calling for three days of sun, but the wet weather from earlier in the week was very slow moving out of the area. Hope springs eternal, but we left the Sheetz with damp roads and cloudy skies. Here's the obligatory gas station shot (just in case we didn't make it :-)):
Joel and I headed south on 119 past Morgantown, Grafton, and Philippi to Buckhannon (jct 33, 119, 20). There are some fine twisties between Point Marion, PA and Morgantown. We used I-68 to bypass Morgantown and followed pleasant, mellow sweepers south thru WV. The rain started as a mist, then light rain, and finally steady rain by the time we hit Buckhannon around 11am. I was starting to get damp under my gear and Joel as closer to wet. We pulled into a Sheetz for a break, to fill up and to ponder the rest of the route. Since it didn't look like it was going to clear up any time soon, I suggested that we lop off about 75 miles of twisties (no fun in the rain) and instead, head directly to the tiny Swiss village of Helvetia where we could enjoy a leisurely lunch at the Swiss restaurant there. So off we went in search of Helvetia...
CR-11 turns off route 20 south of Buckhannon near the town of French Creek. The WV Wildlife Center (or something like that) is located near there too. I had never been to Helvetia before, but was told to expect a nice country road with some gravel and some variable pavement. The road changes to CR-46 just before Helvetia and continues all the way to Mill Creek and route 219. The road into Helvetia from 20 was a pleasant surprise: twisty and scenic with excellent pavement, but yes, a bit dirty on more than a few corners. The rain continued to fall, but we eventually got to Helvetia.
We passed an interesting looking cemetery and suddenly there was the town. The first building we came up to was the Hutte restaurant. So we pulled in and had a fine lunch of homemade sausage sandwiches on homemade bread with applesauce and sauerkraut. Yum! Got out of there for about $10 each with tip. The best part was the restaurant itself. It's an old house and each room has a private table plus they're filled with antiques. I wandered around the restaurant a bit and took several photos of the other rooms. Neat!
Here are a bunch of photos of the town that I took after lunch. The rain had stopped but everything was still soaked. About 25 people live there now. They seemed very proud of the duck population. Chatted with one of the residents who was working at the Bee place making honey and the Cheese Haus making cheese that day. Cool place, definitely worth going out of your way to visit.
The rain stopped while we were eating lunch, so Joel and I continued east on CR-46 toward Mill Creek about 1:30pm or so. The local making the cheese mentioned that a section of road was especially beat up near entrance to a mine (from all the trucks) and to be careful. He wasn't kidding either: what a nasty stretch of asphalt. Here's a pic of CR-46 just before the surface went to hell for a few miles:
We continued north on 219 out of Elkins heading for Parsons and then on to Thomas. 219 is four-lane to nowhere at first, then turns into a very nice stretch of twisties to Parsons. 219 continues to be great fun between Elkins and Thomas, plus you get to ride very close to the wind-power windmills on the ridge. I had clear road ahead so I didn't stop for any photos of the windmills.
Joel dropped back a bit while we were cranking over the mountain and pulled up to me at the 219/32 junction saying his bike was handling poorly. Rear tire looked low, so we pulled over at the Purple Fiddle, a funky little Bohemian joint in Thomas, a mere 12 miles or so from Canaan Valley. I was planning to stop there for a beer anyway, but we had more important things to attend to. Yup, flat rear tire. I had a plug kit, so we rode a short ways to the Thomas Citgo to fix his tire and put air in it. Snapped a few Purple Fiddle pics before heading off though:
We arrived to find a few Triumphs in the lot. "Madd" Jack from Pittsburgh was already there. I finally got to meet Rod Brown, a Sprint owner formerly of State College and now South Carolina, as well as Harvey who hails from Virginia. Here's a shot of the motley crew in the parking lot (Joel, Rod, Jack, Harvey):
Checked in, took a quick shower and then headed to the pizza shop in the lodge for dinner before retiring to the lounge to meet other attendees. Had a fine time in the lounge meeting folks from all over. I eventually ended up BS'ing with the Windber (PA) pack in their room until midnight. A good day despite the rain. Silly me didn't take any pics of people in the lounge/etc though. DUH!
I was hoping for a bright, sunny start to Saturday, but the forecast did warn of morning fog. Not much fog, but it was still cloudy and damp. At least it wasn't raining. The plan was to leave the resort at 8am, ride to the 4U diner near Seneca Rocks for breakfast, then continue on a 325 mile ride on a variety of roads from fast sweepers to back roads. We also were going to meet John, from Virginia, at the 4U, since he was joining us for the rest of the weekend.
Our Saturday crew consisted of myself, James (from Morgantown on a Kawi) and John from State College on a hopped up T100. We left on time and raced off to the 4U on damp roads with some fog/mist in places. I ran into my old climbing buddy Bob in Yokums parking lot at Seneca. While there I took the obligatory shot of Seneca Rocks in the morning mist:
As luck would have it, our group pulled into the 4U just as John (from VA) was arriving. Talk about great timing. Service can be quite relaxed in WV (well, SLOW). I was amazed to see we had an incredibly cute and perky young lass as our waitress. Must of been imported or something. After a fine breakfast for cheap, we headed out on our route. We continued on 33 east thru Judy Gap to Franklin and on to Brandywine. We continued straight onto CR-21 to Sugar Grove where 33 headed left over the mountains to Virginia. CR-21 is a nice enough road to Sugar Grove. Once in Sugar Grove we made a left onto Sugar Grove Rd which turns into 614 in Virginia. Sugar Grove Rd was a nice enough country road with mostly decent pavement (for a back road). That pops out on route 250 a little east of McDowell.
So we ran 250 over the mountain to McDowell and made a left onto 678 just as we hit town. That section of 250 is quite twisty, but patched up. 678 was very nice with an especially scenic section in the middle along the river. Highly recommended if you enjoy back roads. 678 brought us to route 39 between Goshen and Warm Springs. We took 39 west thru Warm Springs to Marlington where we hoped to meet up with Joel and Rod after getting his tire fixed. 39 between Warm Springs and Marlington rocks hard. Put it on your "Must Do" list. Almost new pavement and wonderful twisties.
Our good fortune continued once we hit Marlington. We pulled into a BP/Subway for gas and who pulls in right after us but Joel and Rod! The plug in Joel's tire let go on the way to Elkins, but Rod re-plugged it. They got the tire swapped out and headed south on 219 to attempt to meet us. They had already eaten lunch, so after a bit of chit-chat, Rod headed south towards home, and Joel went off to wash his bike while the rest of us had lunch at the Subway. Our route continued on 39 west to Richwood, which included a great section of 219 just south of Marlington, then fast, scenic sweepers to Richwood. We picked up 20 north in Fenwick, went through a few small towns and then found this as we entered Craigwood:
While taking pictures and chatting up the locals, an EMT told me about an un-marked detour around the parade route. So armed with the secret directions, we headed off into the countryside and popped out back on 20 at the north end of the parade route. Woot! There were some good sections of 20 on towards Webster Springs, but lots of traffic. We picked up 15 east in Webster Springs and raced back to 219 on excellent sweepers in the boonies. 219 north took us into Elkins followed by 33 east to Harmon and 32 north back to the resort.
We pulled in a little after 5pm: more or less right on time. A shower and a couple beers later it was 7pm, the appointed meeting time for an informal group dinner. It turns out the resort was having a prime rib buffet, so that made separate checks easy. Dinner was great and once again I failed to take any people photos. Ran into Jonathon West from Cleveland who had ridden down that day with a friend. Dinner was followed by a few more beers in the lounge and more hanging out with the Windber pack at their room. Their ranks had grown as two more pack members showed up on Saturday. Gotta learn to take more people pics! Once again I retired around midnight with an 8am departure looming the next day...
Sunday morning dawns and the weatherman finally got it right! Foggy with screaming blue skies above the fog. I was feeling a bit tired and didn't want to waste any twisties due to the fog, so I trimmed the planned route a bit and decided to wait until closer to 9am to leave. It was still a bit foggy as we headed out of the resort, but once we crested the hill on 33 heading to Seneca, the skies were blue. Another fine breakfast at the 4U with the same cute and perky waitress followed. It was just Joel and I for the long haul back to Pittsburgh, but John planned to join us until he peeled off for Virginia at Judy Gap.
Our route started on 33 east thru the most excellent Judy Gap (again) only this time we stayed on the 33 all the way into Virginia. Had a bit of traffic going over the mountains, but it was still fun. Joel and I turned around and ran 33 west back to Brandywine where we stopped for gas. The run back over the mountains was traffic free and big fun.
From Brandywine, we headed a little farther west until we hit CR-3 heading north to Moorefield. What a fine little road. Great pavement, a few twisty bits, but mostly awesome scenery as it winds along the valley between the mountains. Here are some pics from along CR-3/CR-7:
