Ride East from Yellowstone

Total Miles Round-Trip to Yellowstone from Alexandria VA and Back: 4,905 miles
Return Trip East from Yellowstone to Alexandria VA: 2,657 miles
States covered by Motorcycle on the Yellowstone Trip: 17 States

Traveling Companion for the Return Ride East: a sullen 14 year old daughter who was voted off the main family trip by her mom and two sisters for being a royal pain.
My ride east from Yellowstone to Alexandria Virginia was done over seven days with a two-night stay in Custer SD to visit Mt. Rushmore and the surrounding area with my family. The ride to Custer was out the northeast entrance of Yellowstone Park for lunch at Cooke City MT and then down the Chief Joseph Highway to Cody and Buffalo where we stopped for the first night. On the way to Custer, I met up with the family and Devil's Tower where we walked about 1.3 miles around the base of the tower and watched the brave souls climbing the rock face.

I then rode through Sturgis SD where bikers were already arriving a week early for Bike Week - saw the town, bought a t-shirt, saw a cool trike and some nice paint jobs. I rode through Deadwood SD and caught sight of my family walking down a sidewalk looking for a good place to eat. I joined them for a great dinner at Jake's, an upscale restaurant owned by the actor Kevin Costner. The bike was left at the hotel in Custer SD so we could visit Mount Rushmore as a family and drive through Custer State Park (word of warning if you are looking for bison - don't expect to see many animals in mid-day July heat at this park). Leaving Custer, I hit the interstate once again and rode all day to South Sioux City Nebraska with a short detour for the Badlands National Park and a wrong turn that resulted in me finding a decomissioned Air Force Minuteman ICBM missile silo. A National Park Service ranger / former USAF enlisted man talked about the the Cold War and the arms control treaties that led to this particular silo being turned into a museum piece.
Except for the Badlands and missile silo detour, I was on the super slab until I hit West Virginia, with routes through Elwood, Kansas, St. Joseph Missouri, Kansas City, and St. Louis. I detoured briefly down by a swollen Missouri River to view the Gateway Arch.

The South Sioux City Nebraska Econo Lodge was a bit dodgy the first night after leaving South Dakoka but the worst stop on the trip was East St. Louis, Illinois. I stayed with my daughter at a slightly smelly Econo lodge at exit 9 off I-64 and made the mistake of hopping on the bike looking for an alternative to the adjacent Cracker Barrel. We rode by shuttered houses and businesses, catching looks from street people and downtrodden residents and found ourselves passing between the Larry Flynt Hustlers Club and the XXX Girls Club before hopping back on I-64 at exit 6 and deciding that the Cracker Barrel was fine after all. I will add that obesity will remain at national problem as long as the standard dinner portion at places like the Cracker Barrel is a hunk of meat with gravy, three sides of vegatables and two biscuits. The very large woman at the table next to us gave a hearty "Yes" when she finished her food and was asked if she had saved room for desert.
After leaving East St. Louis, I decided to move up from the Econo Lodge and stay at a nice Comfort Inn at Cross Lanes, WV just west of Charleston. The hotel has upgraded to take advantage of its location closely to the nearby dog track and slots casino. Nice lounge where I was able to have a beer away from the teen daughter and listen into the bar chatter: one couple looking for directions to a local adult store and a guy who joked that a redneck's final words are "Hey y'all, watch me do this." Huge improvement over East St. Louis but still a world away from the beauty of Yellowstone. On the final day, I headed up I-79 and the left the interstate on Highways 33 and 220 to cut across the West Virginia mountains for a lunch stop at Seneca Rocks. The Front Porch Restaurant is popular with motorcyclists from the DC area who make Senaca Rocks a day-ride and for climbers who scale the rocks. Some say motorcycles are dangerous but I will note here that standing several hundred feet above the ground on a wind-blown rock is not my idea of a good day.
After a nice lunch, it was off on the twisting mountain roads. I like twisties but I can do without hair-pin curves at the bottom of steep mountain inclines. At least I was taking the turns at a more decent pace than the cruiser in front of me who slowed to 20 MPH for every 35 MPH curve - I was able to pass him on a straight piece of road and was a bit ticked off when he tried to accelerate as I was passing him. The V-Strom moved out ahead without a problem once I shifted down a gear. My daughter and I were both happy to see the Virginia state line and I hit I-81 and I-66 for the rest of the way back to Alexandria VA. As I approached home I noted that DC was the worst traffic of any area I have ever visited by car or motorcycle, and I include New York City in that list.
Route East from Yellowstone:

Bike Report:
The V-Strom DL650 was great on the trip. The only downside on the DL650 is that its relatively light weight makes it a bit buzzy at 80 to 85 mph on the interstates and I felt like I was fighting the prairie winds at times. Once off the interstates the V-Strom demonstrated its outstanding qualities on the twisties, secondary highways and occassional gravel roads. I didn't notice any difference in power, acceleration or handling with a passenger compared to the solo ride out to Yellowstone, but then my daughter probably weighs just over 100 lbs (she is old enough to say no man should ask a woman her true weight).
I averaged 40 mpg on the interstates and 50 mpg on the secondary roads, traveling generally 5 miles per hour above whatever the posted speed limit might be. I only had one hour of rain on the way west through Iowa where I needed by rain gear so I was happy about that. Chain lube each night was my only routine maintenance but I will do an overdue oil change tonight after 4900 miles on Mobil synthetic oil. My only mechanical problem was a loose left mirror which started to flop around on I-80 in South Dakota but that was tightened easily with a wrench once I pulled over at the closest stop.

Gear Report:
My Garmin Zumo 550 GPS did a great job generally helping me navigate over seventeen states and countless interstate exits but it was not without a few flubs along the way. I had loaded the 2009 map set before I left but on a few occasions I found myself being told to go down some back alley to find a hotel where either a dead end or a private home was located. I suspect that user error was at fault assuming that I entered the route incorrectly in Mapsource but the Zumo also failed a few times even when I typed in a specific address - it would get me close but not all the way to the desired location. I made good use of the Scala FM bluetooth helmet set to listen to music on the road and take a call occassionally from my wife. I often would turn the music off on the backroads but good tunes helped to pass the time when I was cruising down the interstates.
I have a love/hate feeling toward my Olympia Airglide 2 high viz neon yellow jacket. I really like the high visibility color and the general comfort of the jacket, especially the zip-in liner when riding in the mountains on a chilly morning. I hate the fact that Olympia doesn't make a Tall sizing for their gear so that I had to go with a 2X large size jacket. The result is that I had too much loose material flapping around my chest at 80 MPH just so that I could have a jacket with sleeves long enough. First Gear makes a decent XL Tall jacket that fits me (6'5" tall - 200 lbs) much better but the quality of the material and armor doesn't compare to the Olympia jacket. I also did a modification to my Olympia Airglide overpants to make them fit better - again a tall sizing would have made it all better. I wrote an email to Olympia noting the problem but I guess I will have to send the company's owners a snail mail formal letter since my email received no reply. I will note that I was very pleased with the quick-drying technical hiking Ex Officio clothes I was wearing and the Alaska sheepskin pad between me and the motorcycle seat.

Final Comments
Absolutely fantastic trip overall. For now I am back to commuting to work on the motorcycle and taking weekend rides. Not sure where I will head next for a longer tour but Americade next year or the Tail of the Dragon might be fun. Alaska someday perhaps but that trip may have to wait a bit. We'll see.

First Dirt

My V-Strom DL650 on August 23, 2008 had its first taste of dirt and rocks on a fireroad along the Rapidan River near Banco, VA. As a rider who also enjoys fly fishing, the V-Strom appealed because I was told it was a great do-it-all bike that could take me up on the backroads to access one of Virginia's best trout streams. I had already confirmed the V-Strom is a super daily-commuter to my job in downtown Washington, DC, and my July 2008 tour from Alexandria, VA to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming demonstrated to me that the V-Strom is a very capable touring bike. All was left was to see how it would handle on the Rapidan fireroad, a stretch of dirt and rocks that winds back and forth along the Rapidan River through Virginia's Rapidan Wildlife Management Area to back-country gate that provides hiking access the Shenandoah National Park and popular sites like President Herbert Hoover's Camp Rapidan.



Some kids grow up riding dirt bikes but I had to wait until the age of 46 to take a motorcycle out for my first true dirt road riding experience. The V-Strom is no dirt bike since its 427 lbs. dry weight is twice as heavy as some purely off-road bikes. I had read other Strom riders comment about how the suspension, tires and general top-heavy nature of the V-Strom calls for some prudence when hitting the dirt. The Rapidan Road is mostly a hard packed mountain dirt fireroad with lots of rocks, ruts and bumps. For my first time on anything more challenging that well-maintained gravel roads, I kept my speed down and never made it out of second-gear as I bounced up the fireroad. Standing up on the pegs as I hit the bigger ruts, I rode by a handful of flyfishermen who were packing up as the lunch hour approached. I wasn't sure if they were too thrilled to see a motorcycle back in the quiet seclusion of the Rapidan or maybe it was just my bright high-viz yellow riding jacket. My bike was stilll much less noisy than the dirt bike that came up the road behind me not long afterwards. I am definitely a novice to off-road riding but I went there and got back without a drop or broken levers. All in all, taking the V-Strom out on the dirt was a lot of fun.

I entered the Rapidan fireroad after riding from Alexandria VA by way of I-66, US 29 and VA 609 to Banco VA, and turned off US 231 to VA 670. Just past Criglersville, you take a left on Quaker Run Road which turns to dirt and no state maintenance after a few miles where it enters the Rapidan tract of the Rapidan Wildllife Management Area. For the full map go here.


At least the Rapidan Road was dry and not muddy but the lack of recent rain meant that the fishing was not very good. It didn't help that I was hitting the Rapidan around Noon on a hot August day. The water level in the Rapidan was very low so I didn't even bother putting on waders. I just walked across the river at a low point below some rocks in my water-proof motorcycle boots. I was able to find one decent pool of water and spent about 45 minutes trying first a Adams parachute dry fly and then a wooly bugger. Recalling that it is called fishing and not catching, I didn't catch any fish but I still enjoyed being on the water. I stored my fishing gear and 5-piece travel 4 wt. rod back in my Givi cases and headed back down to the fireroad and then up US 231 toward Sperryville.


I rode from Sperryville up on Skyline Drive where the speed limit is 35 MPH (and strictly-enforced by NPS police). Virginia also has lowered the speed limit from 45 MPH oto 35 MPH on the portion of Highway 211 between Speryville and the entrance to the Shenandoah National Park because of accidents and fatalities on the road as it twists up toward the gate to the park. "Since 2002 there have been 51 motorcycle crashes resulting in 46 injuries and the deaths of seven motorcycle riders on the section of Route 211 between Sperryville and the top of Thornton Gap." Riding along Skyline's curves and mountain top views, I passed a deer munching grass by the road as I headed 10 miles south to Skyland Resort for lunch.



After a nice break, I road back to Thornton Gap and headed west on Highway 211 toward Luray and then up Highway 340 to Front Royal. From there I made a quick dash on I-66 back to Alexandria to get to home before my wife returned from a day of Girl Scout back-country camping training. I got back just as our three lovely daughters were racing to finish the house-cleaning chores we had left behind for them to do. Yes, the parents play one day out of the month while daughters aged 16, 15 and 10 do some light house-work. It's a wonderful life.

Rapidan ride: about 280 miles in all, round-trip.