Not much going on this rainy morning so I thought I'd tell you all about two bike rides I took this past year. One was with a friend and the other was alone, both took three days. Both rides were random in that no route was planned beforehand, no destination named, just a plan to follow. Its the plans that I wanted to tell you about, just because they are kind of neat.
The first ride was with my friend Mark. Mark came up with "his ride" two years ago and I only tagged along for one leg of it as he was finishing up. Here is what he did. Mark printed a map of our state (West Virginia) that included the outlines of its 55 counties with their county-seats, but no other landmarks. Then he picked a county and directed his GPS to plot a route to the County Seat. The County Seat of every county, as far as the GPS is concerned, is actually the front door of the County Court House - and that is where it will direct you. So Mark rode to the first Court House, parked his bike in front of it, took a photograph, and then punched in the County Seat for the next County.
The trick with this was not to pick which county you were going to beforehand, just to make sure they were contiguous. By letting the GPS pick the roads you get to see everything in the state. We camped at State and National Forests which are really nice and very inexpensive. It was really a great ride. We covered right at 300 miles each day.
My ride, which I did alone, was similar. The rule I set out to define my ride was pretty simple. I would ride around my state in its entirety. I would stay as close to the border as possible without leaving the state no matter how small or poorly maintained the road was - as long as it was a public road. This ride also took 3 days and I also stayed at State Parks and National Forest camp grounds. I had read up on the state's history and geology before I left because these are things that interest me. It was a wonderful ride and one I recommend to everyone. On my ride I covered a bit less ground than the one I took with my friend, but I am more inclined to stop and just look at things and talk to people than he is.
Oh, as a matter of full disclosure - on these rides my buddy was riding a BMW and I was riding a Harley. In my own defense, I own five motorcycles, three of which are Hondas and two of which are Harleys.
