More on the RidgeRunners' Ride 2007

Pictures of the ride.

The route was, starting in Richmond, then

• West on River Road to SR 6
  
• SR6 west through Scottsville (still torn up), with a side trip to Schuyler, VA (home of Walton's Mountain creater Earl Hamner, Jr.)
  
• US 29 S to Colleen (after lunch in Lovingston).
  
• SR 56 west to Piney Grove, then SR 778 west/southwest to US 60.
  
• US 60 to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
  
• South on the BRP to SR 130
  
• SR 130 west to Natural Bridge, VA

Spent the night at the hotel there (20% discount for motorcyclists, with the coupon from the hotel's page)

• Sunday north on US 11 (with a stop at Foamhenge!)
  
• Putz around Lexington looking for an open coffee shop (couldn't find one!) Grab some fruit at Kroger's, then stop for fuel outside of town.
  
• SR 39 west through Goshen Pass, with stops at the Maury River and Dan Ingall's Overlook.
  
• SR 39 west to US 220 north, stopping for lunch in Monterey, VA.
  
• US 220 north to West Virginia. Shortly after crossing the line, SR 25 east to SR 21 North to Brandywine, WV.
  
• US 33 east all the way back to Richmond,, with a stop on Shenandoah Mountain, fuel before the Blue Ridge, discover low oil, stop in Ruckersville looking for oil, stop in Gordonsville for a chocolate malted & a quart of 10W40 dino (mixing with my 10W50 synth, due to low oil).

Approx. 440 miles round trip, 9.5 hours in the saddle, top speed 102mph (for me, not Dave & Ray), average speed 44 mph, average fuel 39 mpg.

Tired from the Weekend, but Oh How Much Fun!  My brother Ray and my best friend Dave went motorcycling this weekend. They drove up from Georgia (Dave from Rising Fawn, picking Ray up in Lawrenceville NE of Atlanta) with Dave's new-to-him 1996 Honda Magna 750. I had Ray's '92 Nighthawk 750 here.
More about the trip later, including pictures posted to Flickr. Suffice it to say, however, that we had a blast on Saturday & Sunday! Blue Ridge, Shenandoah, and a bit of West Virginia heaven.

And they say the surge is working... Looks like Gen. Petraeus got some 'splainin' to do.

Is Apple Still Cool?  Has Apple still got it? Forbes has an interesting discussion. I still think it is and will continue to innovate.

So It Goes.  RIP, Billy Pilgrim. May you live forever on Tralfamidor.

Shopping for Records  Went to Plan 9 Records the other day. While browsing through the LPs, I was struck by how many of them came from my peak period of record-buying—1971 through 1982 or so. Artists like Dan Fogelberg, Billy Joel, Frank Zappa, and so many others show up. It's almost like a slice of musical time.

The Wayback Machine Redux  Yes, it's me, on Broad Street in St. Elmo...the area at the foot of Lookout Mountain, across from the Incline Pharmacy and almost next door to Kay's Kastle ice cream store Good gravy! What was I thinking back then?
Lord, look at that collar! I was wearing the "uniform" of McCallie School, which by that time had turned simply private...before, it was military, from 1908 until 1971.

Capturing the Past  In a few weeks I'm planning a motorcycle weekend. My middle bro Ray and my high-school friend Dave are planning to come up from Georgia (Lawrenceville & Rising Fawn, respectively). Dave's bringing his Honda Magna 750 in the back of his truck, while Ray will pick up his Honda Nighthawk 750 I picked up for him.

The goal is to ride for a day or two together, and then they'll pakc both bikes into the truck & diddy mau back to Georgia. All three of us are re-entry bikers, with me having the most riding experience lately, about 60,000 miles in the past five years. Dave picked his bike up about a month ago, while Ray just recently got his license.

I first rode on Dave's 1971 Honda 450 in the summer of '72. He even took me to get a haircut on it. I remember riding a hundred miles an hour on the back of the bike, wearing my McCallie blazer, while we raced to the back of Lookout Mountain to get to a barber we knew...who was closed. We then had to race to the foot of the mountain, where the St. Elmo barber was still open.

The next year, Ray bought a brand-new Honda 450. I vividly recall the first day he brought it home, stalling out as he humped and bumped it up the hill to our Franklin Street/Bragg Avenue house. I also vividly remember our mother absolutely collapsing in tears on the living room floor when she learned he'd bought a bike.

Now, 35 years later, the three of us will ride together. It's sort of a nostalgia trip for me in a way...the three of us were close those early '70s summers, and now, three decades later, we have a chance to spend some time together.