10k mile trip around the USA

Sent from Reston, VA

Am now in Reston, VA at my high school friend Don's house. Quite the events have happend in the last couple days. After spending the night in a motel in Hendersonville, NC I set out to finish the final few sport bike type roads I'd highlighted in pink on my map. Found a few gems including Route 9 leading into Blowing Rock. Besides the pink, I marked certain roads with an exclamation mark indicating that it's a "must do" road based on comments people made in the motorcycleroads.com website. In almost all cases they were indeed that good. Fun! The super curvy road by "Little Switzerland" off of the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) was particularly twisty. I left the Blue Ridge Parkway to get gas in Boone, NC, then back up to the BRP. In peak tourist season the BRP gets a lot of traffic with slow RVs. Mid week in the springtime it's almost empty. Same for Skyline Drive in VA. You can really enjoy the curves with no one else on it.

Photos from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Back on the BRP my right foot felt slippery on the foot peg. I looked down and saw oil all over my boot and thought WTF??? Pulled over despite no shoulder and saw that oil was running down the right cylinder from under the valve cover. My phone showed that I had cell service, but no internet access. I called my wife Deb and had her post a "On the side of the road" post to the Wild Guzzi forum. Within minutes, Dusty called me and said the valve cover gaskets fail often on these engines. Indeed it looked like that's what happened. In the mean time I flagged down a park service truck for help. 3 more trucks eventually stopped and I had a gang of maybe 8 park service guys discussing the best options for towing, and to what town. Dusty suggested I just ride to and auto parts store to fix it, and to watch the oil level. So I said goodbye to the park service guys and rode down into West Jefferson, where there was an auto parts store. I got there about an hour before they closed and bought a couple tools, some gasket material and gasket glue. I got the valve cover off and found that one part of the gasket hadn't adhered to the cover and had slid off the surface of the cover, causing a leak. That solves the mystery of why I had to add most of a quart of oil during the first 4k miles, and why I had smelled burning oil while riding. I showed the cover and gasket to the auto parts store guy and he said I should talk to 2 guys near the door who were mechanics and rode motorcycles. One guy said to just scrape the gasket off and use gasket maker, which comes in a tube that you squeeze onto the surface. I didn't scrape the gasket off, but did apply the gasket maker after returning the cork gasket material. After getting everything reassembled I coasted my bike down a hill over to a Day's Inn motel next door. The gasket maker goo was supposed to cure for 24 hours before exposing it to fluids.

Parked in front of the auto parts store in West Jefferson, NC.

Right side valve cover removed.

Faulty gasket.

The stuff I used to repair the leak. Worked fine for the rest of the trip.

So I checked in to the motel and made dinner. I'd bought Ahi tuna and veggies for a stir fry and didn't want to waste it by going to a restaurant. My neighbors 2 doors down were barbequing on the tailgate of their truck, and gave me a grilled brat on a bun. I offered them some of my tuna and veggies. The gal who worked at the motel counter who was hanging out with them took some, but the guy said "I don't eat vegetables".

NCDan from the Wild Guzzi forum called me. My "On the side of the road" post to the forum had mobilized people to assist me. What a great bunch of people. Dan lamented my not having called him initially since he was at his vacation house close by. He said he'd come by in the morning to pick me up for breakfast. He came by around 8:00 and drove me to a little diner out in the country for eggs, bicuits and pork gravy. Delicious. Dan put in a few words for me and my motorcycle when he said Grace. Thanks Dan! Then we went to his beautiful house on the New River where I met his wife. What an idyllic setting. They played some tunes for me, his wife on guitar and Dan playing banjo then fiddle.

Photos of NCDan, his beautiful house on the New River, and his dog Daisy who's no longer with us.

Click to hear Dan and his wife play.

Got back to the motel before checkout time and fired up the Guzzi. No leaks after it got good and warmed up. I packed up and Dan followed me to the edge of town where it was easy to get back up on the BRP. We said goodbye there. I passed the spot where I stopped the day before and happily rode on. So nice to be on the BRP. I came to think of getting off it as getting back to reality. Made me want to get back on it. No decisions to make at intersections, just glide through the forest and stop at the overlooks sometimes.

The spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway where I pulled over because of the oil leak.

Blue Ridge Parkway overlooks.

I stopped in Roanoake, VA for lunch at a brew pub, then rode up Rte 81 to get to Vesuvius, which is the steepest hill on Bikecentennial trail accross the US. I rode down it as a teenager on an attempted cross country bike trip. While on 81 at high speed my bike suddenly wanted to slow down and stop, So I pull over and found that my rear wheel was locked up. The rear brake rotor was super hot. So somehow my rear brake engaged and stayed that way. As it cooled off I was able to rotate the wheel. I called Dan and he suspected what I did, an ABS malfunction. There's a button to turn it off on my bike, so I did. No problems then. Later I left the ABS on and it was still fine. Maybe it was just a one time glitch.

Thought about making a beeline to Don's house on Rte 29 211 from Charlottesville but opted to continue up Skyline drive to Rte 211. Glad it did. So beautiful. I stopped at the Little Stony Man overlook where my Mom's and stepfather's ashes are scattered. I can see why they chose that spot. The down from the mountains and into suburban northern VA. I moved west from there in 1985 and hadn't been back for many years. Nothing's recognizable of course. Without Google maps on my phone I wouldn't have been able to find my way anywhere.

Little Stony Man overlook off the Skyline Drive in VA where my Mom's and stepfathers ashes are scattered

Really great to see Don. We had a nice sushi dinner. Talked, then bed. Next day did a hike through Great Falls Park where I used to rock climb as a young man with my high school friend Ken. Will resume my northward journey tomorrow. Next stop will be to Ken in Orange, MA.

My high school friend Don with our sushi dinner.

Photos of hike at Great Falls Park showing rock climbing areas, the Potomac River and us.

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