My trip from VA to OH

[jay956]

AKA "Bug Bash" from beginnerbikers.org

Thursday
Alarm goes off at 5:30, but I don't. I end up rolling out of bed at about 6. The anticipation kept me up all night and i was running on 4 hours of sleep. I chug a cup of coffee, toss everything on the bike and head to Fredericksburg to meet Ricky at his place.

From there its off to Winchester to meet with the rest of the crew, Joe, Kath, Mike, & Dave.

We end up rolling out of Winchester at about 9:30, and head to the twisties, but my bike had other plans. No less than a mile away from the gas station it stalls on me. I pull off the road, and think, someone suggests vapor lock. OK, pop open the gas cap start her back up and it seems to be running fine. Great, now off to rt50 and down to rt33. We have a great ride and stop in Seneca Rocks for a break.


Now to continue on 33 for some more great roads. But yet again, about a mile down the road, chug chug crap! bike dies on me again. Pull off and wait a minute, this time she doesn't want to start back up right away.

Eventually got it started up agian and everything seemed OK until about another 80 miles down the road when it died 50 feet in front of an intersection, and the light was turning yellow. The hell if I'm stopping, i coast through it into a gas station. As I'm topping of we think that i might have gotten some bad gas at the first stop, because that's where it all started. So just for the hell of it i dump in a little cleaner stuff into the tank. After that it felt a lot better, and we made to to lunch.

Then it was off to a very fun, but very wet and slippery rt250. But Joe & Kath were a little too far behind this time. And of course no one has cell coverage out there. OK who's got change?

Some how they ended up in PA. This is when the bike starts to get into a rhythm, it would run anywhere from 40-90 miles then die, i would pull over and wait a minute, and it would be fine for another 40-90 miles. We found Kath & Joe about 15 miles from the hotel at a gas station. It was getting awfully dark and 10 miles down the road it starts to rain. We pull over and was assured by Mike that the hotel was only 4 miles away so everyone decided to forgo the rain gear. But when we made a 175 degree turn that dropped down about 10 feet onto a road that looked basically like a driveway, i knew it was going to be a long 4 miles. We made it into Wheeling, already wet, and decided to drive around the block about 24 times to find the hotel. And when we found it, we were told that there were no rooms available. Wet and tired we made it to another hotel for some much needed rest.


Friday
The forecast wasn't good for the day. So the plan was to slab it to the AMA Museum, then head to Dayton.

But now my bike was only making it about 20 miles before it would die. The original plan of make it to Bug Bash and see what people think was no longer an option. Dave, being the great person that he is, stuck with me while we sent the rest of the group ahead. I tried searching for "Honda" and "motorcycle" in the gps but had no luck with finding any dealers. So i searched for auto parts stores and off we went. We ended up on a little local auto service place not even in the gps. They told us that there was a Honda dealer abour 12 miles away. Great! I was finally feeling a little better. When we made it there I have never been so happy to see a Honda sign.


This place was absolutely amazing. They dropped everything and put me on high priority. Pulled the bike in their shop and explained the situation. They also thought bad gas. But after draining the float bowls a couple time it didn't want to turn over at all. I was pretty low at that point, so I went and looked at some bikes in the showroom. After about 15 minutes, I hear from the back VROOOM VROOOOOM. I know my bike, and that's it. I'm sure I had a huge smile on my face. The mechanic comes out and explains the situation. They have had a fuel pump sitting in the back for the past year, the whole time this guy has been working there, and it wouldn't fit any bike they've had in there, except mine! he took it out for a quick spin to make sure everything was OK. But 5 minutes go by, hmm, maybe hes just making sure its fine because I told him it would die after a few miles, 10 minutes, oh crap, 15 minutes, damn something happened to it again! No wait there he is!

We had forgot about the no helmet law so we were just expecting to go around the block, but he jumped on the highway and went through some stop lights to check everything out. The one thing he told me as soon as he jumped off the bike was "man that thing has some soul", which was funny because that's pretty much what everyone says about it. The real kicker is what they charged me; $20 for the fuel pump, 30 minutes of labor, and a discounted fuel filter, which i was going to replace soon anyway. Came to a total of $72 and some change. I can't thank these guys enough for what they did for me. If anyone is near Bellaire, OH please go support them. The ride from Bellaire to Dayton was uneventful, but relaxing now that I'm not worrying about where i am going to break down next, with only 2 stops and all slab. We did find a place that makes breakfast all day and had some delicious omelets for lunch.

We hit a little traffic through Columbus but it kept moving and we made it to the Holiday Inn around 5.




I really have to thank Mike for lending me his Rent-A-Friend.

Dave was just awesome sticking with me and keeping me calm while the rest were having fun trying to look like a bad ass on a F4.


Saturday
We decided to forgo the group ride. 50 bikes through Ohio roads just did not call us, especially after riding for 2 days through WV. We checked out the Air Force Museum instead, and I'm glad we did. This place is huge and packed with all sorts of aircraft.





After that it was off to the hosts house for the bike swap and party.






So many bikes, so little time. I ended up riding a Bandit 1200, 5th gen VFR, V-Strom, Sprint, K1200S, GSX650F, & SL1000R. The Beemer was by far my favorite, tons of power yet it was light and smooth, and it was comfortable.

Sunday
Time our crew to say goodbyes and head back to VA. The roads pretty much suck in OH so the plan was to just slab it out of there and get to the good stuff quick. But leave it to the lady in the group to find touristy thing on the way.

We eventually made it to rt78, which was an awesome road. it starts out very tight and technical but finishes with some high speed sweepers.



After that we hit rt7, which was another great road. I was having so much fun that i forgot to zip up my jacket. Great turns, great scenery, lots of deer and chickens. Smiles all around after this one.

Monday
More goodbyes today as Joe and Kath head out on their own this morning.

The rest of us head out on a route that i no longer remember, but we're in WV so there must be twisties! It was another great ride through the mountains. We all split off on our own ways when we neared Front Royal. I made it home at about 5 after getting stuck in some traffic. I totaled just under 1300 miles and i loved every bit of it. Can't wait to do it again!

[monk69]

Great Thread.... Thx.
Glad they got your bike going, too.

[VA NTCPTR]

Sounds like a cool adventure,nice write up Jeremy.

[horseiron1]

Awesome write up

[betarace]

love it! Have done a similar ride to Vintage Days... it's a great few days