Hagerstown Bike Week and a Birthday Party

Our son lives in Hagerstown Maryland with his wife and two children Alyssa and Sydney. The plan was for my wife and I and our daughter, her husband and their daughter Casey to travel to Hagerstown Maryland for Sydney’s first birthday party. Checking the dates for this trip I noticed that Hagerstown bike week would be going on at the same time. Seeing this as an opportunity, I called my son who rides a Harley and had him start checking out the event. I called my son-in-law who also rides a Harley and we started making plans to head north to checkout Hagerstown’s first ever bike week, and to celebrate Sydney’s 1st birthday. Turned out our son-in-law couldn’t make the trip due to work commitments. So mother, daughter, and grand daughter packed up our daughter’s jeep and I jumped on the bike and we all headed to Hagerstown.

We left VB at 7:00 am. It was a beautiful day, cool, dry and not a cloud in the sky. The traffic was light on 64 and on 95. Just north of Fredericksburg we picked up route 17. This is where the fun begins. This is where you can slowdown and begin to enjoy the ride without having to worry too much about traffic. We stayed on 17 all the way to Winchester where we picked up 81 to Hagerstown. We arrived in Hagerstown at our son’s house at about 1:00 pm.



My son and I rode to the bike week event and looked around. The event was held at Cancun Cantina on Dual Highway. They were still setting up but things looked promising. We went the long way home where we parked the bikes and we all went to the mall for dinner and I was in the hotel and sound asleep early. All in all a good day. We stayed at a Super 8 motel which is not a four start hotel but not to bad.

Got up and got moving on Friday morning. Our son had a pretty full day planned. First, we rode to Cunningham Falls State Park

and hiked ½ mile to the waterfall. We Checked out the lake and the facilities. This is a beautiful park with camping if your into that sort of thing. There are plenty of other things to do like hiking, canoeing, and swimming.





We left the park and went back to bike week. This was more like it. For the first year this was a well attended event with plenty of vendors and things to do. They had all of the traditional events, tattoo show, bike show, bikini contest and plenty of food and music along with several rides to local attractions. We ate lunch at the event and got back on the road.

We then rode to Antietam battlefield and checked out the visitor center and walked around some of the displays. We left there and headed over to Williamsport HD. This is a full service Harley dealership but it is located in a corporate center. It’s small, but it is loaded with everything you could ever need.

We headed home and had a good home cooked dinner and visited with family.

Saturday was the birthday party. Plenty of people and plenty of kids, and plenty of food. Sydney made out like a bandit. She got a ton of toys and clothes. Good job to Glorianne and her mom Brenda.

Sunday morning I left Hagerstown at 6:15 and headed south on 81 to Winchester Va. Gassed up and headed south on 17 towards Fredericksburg and 95. Traffic on 95 was heavy but steady, but when I hit 64 things got a little hectic. I got off in Ocean view and enjoyed the rest of the ride home. I was home at 12:15. Once again the weather couldn’t have been better.

This was a fantastic weekend. 668 miles total. Great weather, I visited with family and friends, and I got to ride with my son.

Life is good.

ride safe.

You’ve got to be kidding me

So I was reading Easy Rider magazine the other day, the August 2011 edition. And I ran across an article about seatbelts for bikes. Yeah, you heard that right…seatbelts for motorcycles. It seems the geniuses at Honda have decided that motorcycle riders should be belted in (or is that on). Anyway, according to the article it seems this is a serious project.

So while all intelligent human beings know that you want to be as far away from the motorcycle as possible if you go down, and the best way to do that is to not be strapped to the bike, Honda feels you need to be strapped in/on but still be able to get away and they seem to have an answer. According to the article they (Honda) are working to incorporate (are you ready) ejector seat technology into this system. When the computer senses that the bike is tipping over and is beyond recovery, it releases the entire seat and inflates the airbag backrest. I can just see some poor schmuck in a parking lot whose bike falls over and the seat goes sailing into a parked cars windshield (there’s a law suit) and the air bag deploys leaving this guy/gal looking like a fool.

In another article in the same magazine, same issue and by the same author, Bill Bish from NCOM, More automotive safety devices are coming to motorcycles. According to Mr. Bish, within the next two years motorcycles might have technology such as collision detection, speed limit warning devices, information about the automobiles around you, and information about the tightness of road bends. All of this will be transmitted to the rider through different means, one method mentioned in the article is a vibrating seat or special gloves. Just what I need in southern Virginia in the summer…gloves.

Ok, maybe it’s just me but if you want all of that crap buy a car!!! If you need to design all of this technology to overcome the unique motorcycle problems I have an idea. Leave motorcycles alone!!! Whatever happened to people making their own decisions and being responsible for their own actions. Pretty soon vehicles will drive themselves and humans will never have to think again. And don’t tell me this stuff will never happen. You know that eventually some politician who has never ridden a motorcycle in his/her life will decide that we (riders) need all of this stuff and no one will argue, it will become law and that will be the end of our great sport of riding motorcycles. Not to mention what this will do to the cost of bikes.

Hopefully they will leave older bikes alone and I can enjoy riding the way it was meant to be. Ride safe, have fun.

4th of July ride

Happy 4th of July weekend!!! I hope yours is fun and safe. Speaking of safe, I thought it would be a pretty smart idea and much safer to ride before the 4th when maybe the traffic isn't so bad and there won't be as many nuts on the road after a party where they have had a little too much celebrating and now they are texting and watching the GPS instead of where they are going.

I decided to ride on Saturday the 2nd. Debbie was watching our Granddaughter and couldn't go. I left around 9:00. The weather was nice and cool. I rode to Bayside HD just to see if anything was going on. They were having a Corvette show and the place was jumping. I checked out some of the cars and talked to a couple of friends I hadn't seen in a while and then I headed out for Outerbanks HD in Kitty Hawk. Bad move.

So I left Bayside and headed south on 17. The weather was starting to warm up, but once I was clear of Portsmouth and Great Bridge the road opened up and it was clear sailing. I cruised south until just past the North Carolina rest stop where I picked up 343 to South Mills. I turned left on 258 and followed that for a very short distance and then kept right onto 34. This takes you to 158 south. so far so good, not much traffic and what traffic there was moved pretty well.

As I got near 158 I began to worry about traffic. 158 is the main road into Nags Head. well, imagine my surprise when I merged onto 158 and had no trouble getting into traffic. Traffic was heavy but it moved pretty well and I didn't see anyone doing anything stupid. Again, I began commending myself for wise decision.

Okay, ready? You knew this was coming. About 5 1/2 to 6 miles north of Grandy traffic came to all stop.Traffic heading North was moving well, but south was going nowhere. After about 10 minutes of baking in the heat, I was able to make a U-turn and head home. I don't know if there was an accident, or if everyone just hit the brakes when they entered Grandy, but whatever the reason it was a mess.

So, I left at 9 and was home by 12:30. Not much of a ride but I did managed to get in 140 miles. I think I'll enjoy the rest of the 4th of July weekend on the couch.

Ride safe.