Today was all Steve’s fault. No really. Let me explain.

We woke up to overcast skies and had the usual stormy evening with much of the area under water. Our covert plan to miss all of the bad weather had worked so far and why should it change?

We rode about 40 miles down the highway when it started to happen. Water started falling from the sky. “How could that be?” Mike asked. “We have been on the road for 18 days and have missed virtually all of the bad weather, what has changed?” hmmm. I wonder what it could be. Steve piped in “I know, I’m to blame.” Well it sort of made sense but I was not going to judge poor Steve so quickly, being the easy going type of guy I am. “Just a coincidence” I told Mike. “We’ll see” He said back.

During the day we got to ride on some great roads and even in the rain we had a blast. There were some neat areas where the trees are so abundant that they actually cover the road like a tunnel from the trucks driving through. There were times when this tunnel would last almost a half-mile at a time!

We made it to West Virginia and I stopped while crossing the Ohio River and took a shot of the welcome sign and Steve, who was jumping at a chance to get in a picture. Mike on the other hand never stopped as the rain was increasing in intensity and the river was rising pretty fast.

The rain came down hard for over 175 miles of our ride today but I still got some shots in while riding and still made stops to take some pictures. At times it felt like we were being sand blasted with tiny pellets. We passed a defunct electrical power plant and the water was rising enough now to create some pretty big noise.

Some of the lakes in the area were brown in color from all of the mudslides that have been causing havoc over the past few days. The water levels were very high as well

We stopped for gas in a town called Gauley Bridge, West Virginia and were told that the road was closed down the road away due to an overturned semi. We decided to take an alternate route and went up Rt. 39 and we soon noted that we had made the right choice! The roads were perfect although the rain came down hard for much of the way. At one point, I ran over a spot of the painted stripe on the roadway through a sharp bend and since our bikes only have a total (front and rear) of less than 3 square inches of tread footprint, I slid both front and rear end across the road about 3 feet! It brought back memories of my road racing days except I did not have 70 pounds of luggage on the bike with me! I remember my first crash in the rain while racing. It was a blast! One reason was I was going pretty darn slow and the other was that I just slid to a nice slow stop on the wet pavement. OF course, I did not crash the bike today but I immediately called to mike on our bike-to-bike communicators “I advise you to stay off the paint!” “10-4” was all I heard back.

After the slide, the rest of the ride was a little slower for me through the twisties but it still was OK even in the rain. We decided to ride to Lexington Virginia since we were already dressed for the rain. We passed through the border and stopped to take a shot of the Virginia sign. That now makes 13 States that the CB77’s have rolled in. Only two more to go! 

About 5 miles before we got to the exit to look for a hotel, the rain came down in buckets. I could not believe that the ride was ending like this. Just pouring rain! As soon as we pulled into the hotel, Mike got right off his bike and said, “I just don’t understand it, we’ve missed virtually every rainstorm until today. Now, what’s different?” He walked over to Steve and said “I just can’t seem to put my finger on it.” He then touched Steve with his finger and said “Oh, NOW I’ve got my finger on it!!”

To prove it, after we checked in, Steve fell asleep in a chair, the clouds thinned, the sun came out and the sky was as blue as we have seen. Just like that!  “Now I agree.” I said. Now you know why it’s all Steve’s fault!

Well, the good news is that we did get to try out our First Gear Storm Jacket, Rainman pants and rubber over-boots and they all worked great in the wet weather. I did put a tear in the boots while I was putting the bike on the center-stand but I still had dry feet after the day was completed.

We did put in 293 miles today and that takes our total accumulated miles to 3392. We’ll break 3500 miles tomorrow. We are on Map number 15 out of 19 so the trip is starting to wind down! Our bikes ran flawlessly in all of the rain and Steve’s muffler is not getting any worse. We’ll try to get it repaired before we get to Norfolk.

Soon we will be dipping our wheels in the Atlantic Ocean!

Check back for the next installment of our Ride to Remember!