Roll Me Away: Mountainfest starts

my lonely motorcycle getting washed by Mother Nature

I started this journey on Thursday morning, July 20th, sharing breakfast with my friend,
Crazy Larry, with the scooter packed as I was heading out of town. We shared some food and a short ride together before parting way. I had some time to kill before hooking up with my riding partner for the weekend, so I spent a good part of Thursday carving some two lane black top

through Ohio, taking a very long way to Weirton, WV. Well, a two hour ride turned in to about 240 miles... On the way, I discovered Ohio route 83, a beautiful scenic ride out of Millersburg down to Route 22, which was a nice two lane ride most of the way. Unfortunately, I made my way to Weirton sooner than our hook up time. I messaged my friend to let her know I was at our meeting place and she said she would be there as soon as possible. I had been racing the weather all day, surrounded by dark gray clouds and shrouded in heavy humidity. As I headed to an overhang at our meeting place, the sky opened up and for the next hour, a torrential downpour ensued! My timing couldn't have been more fortuitous!!

So my riding partner for the weekend is Shelly but we will call her Bean! I followed her home, we parked the scooter, threw some of my stuff in her drier (go figure) and went out for a bite to eat. After drying more of my clothes, a good night's sleep, and packing up our scoots the next morning, we headed out to Mountainfest in Morgantown, WV. Bean had done some recon a couple of weeks before and her

choice of two lane black top for the ride down was nothing less than spectacular! Incredible vistas and views of West Virginia and Pennsylvania rolling hills, she even scoped out a special place for a photo op on my behalf. Good thing because by the time we got there, she had managed to pick up a bee hitch hiking in her shirt and it stung her not once, but three times before she pulled her shirt open and asked me to get it out of there!(And just so you know, I took the picture AFTER I got the bee out ... I am not that wicked of a person!)

Being the trooper she is, we continued on. Fortunately no allergies here because we were pretty darned remote at that time!

Bean at Triple S Harley Davidson, Morgantown

Eighty miles later, we pulled into Morgantown and found our way to Triple S Harley Davidson to register and get the scoop on the happenings for the weekend. Bean had already spent a fair amount of time checking out the schedule and scoping out the different locations. Plus, she was familiar with Morgantown and, being more of a real GPS person (as opposed to an "old school" GPS, aka map person such as myself) Bean has a cell phone mount on her handle bars and was able to navigate us through a very confusing maze of a town. As with many coal and steel mill towns in this part of the country, Morgantown is sort of buried in a valley and the roads are very confusing if you're not a local. I would have never found half the places we went if I hadn't been following her.

After registering, we found our way to Sabraton with every intention of riding in the Cycle Source run to the hills. But the weather appeared threatening and we still had our gear on our bikes. Bean doesn't have a windshield and isn't real comfortable with riding in the rain. Truth is, nobody really is, but she has less than two years riding experience and I get that. She told me she really didn't want to go but that I should go. And that was when I told her what every old school biker knows... you NEVER leave your riding partner. I don't care if you are at a run. If you go to the event together, you hang together. That's what partner means. It means you are there for each other. I knew when we scheduled this run together than she was less experienced than I when I comes to length of riding. But she can sure as hell handle that Sporty of hers. And realizing where your comfort level and your riding skills

are is a very real and important part of maturing as you continue the journey in motorcycling. And I applaud that and fully support it. So we passed on the run. But not before I was able to stop and hook up with Chris Callen, Editor and owner of Cycle Source Magazine who gave me a bit piece on one of his live feed videos. If you go to their Facebook page you will see me in it. Then the next video, you get to hear him and crew make fun of the people who didn't ride because they were afraid of the rain. That's ok, my friend. Like I said, you don't leave a partner behind.

After a couple of hours, we made our way out to Mylan Park, the happening place for the event, where we did some shopping, listened to some tunes and hung out for the rest of the day. Bean got to see her very first Wall of Death show and motorcycle stunt show. I will see if I can post the videos of the Wall of Death when I get home... my little travel notebook can't view the videos so I don't know if they will post right.

Here's a few more pics from the day on Friday. Enjoy.