[scrambled]

My old high school friend and I met for our third-annual dualsport reunion in mid-October. He lives in Michigan and I'm in Maryland, so we alternate our destination each year. This was the "neutral" year so we picked southwestern West Virginia as our rendezvous site.

We found it difficult to locate campgrounds near the trails. The site we chose, Pinnacle Creek Campground, sounded good with a general store, gas, showers, etc. The one concern we had was that their website said the pictures are "coming soon". I doubt they will ever post pics of the campsites.

The gas and general store was a Marathon station on what turned out to be a busy truck road. The coal trucks ran 24/7 and frequently stopped at the Marathon station throughout the night. The campground was directly behind the gas station and consisted of a big gravel parking lot.

No worries, we both made our 400+ mile journeys safely and were ready to ride.

The first day we rode about 20 miles to get loose after our long drives. I was running on my reserve tank and ran out of gas about 1/4 mile from the campground.

Day two was very wet. We rode about 35 miles out on the muddy trails. At this point I started throwing my chain. I couldn't put any torque on the chain without slipping it off the sprocket. My friend rode back for his truck and I nursed the TW to a nice campground close by. We met up again after a 3 hour separation. My friend had some trouble finding his way back to the truck via the roads. Oddly, most of the locals didn't know how to cross the mountain to the town where we started. He eventually followed the coal trucks to our Marathon station.

Day three was sunny and warm. We got my chain tightened and were ready to break camp. We went to a different trailhead and rode another 20 miles. This time I tried to pass my friend through a mud puddle while he went around it. I picked the wrong puddle! I got about 24" deep before stalling the TW. We pulled her out, but she would only idle after that.

Not my finest moments of preparation (I DID tighten my chain before I left, but the stock chain is junk and stretched more than I expected) or split-second choices. Luckily, my friend was patient and now we have a few more moments in our trip log to laugh about as we sip Pumkings by the campfire.

 

[busyweb]

Looks very fun riding...

Thanks for the sharing with us.

Last photo is great... ha ha ha (King of Pumpkin)

 

[auto360]

Hey Scrambled,



Funny, I was reading about the camp site then scrowled down and saw that I had stayed at that exact one 2 months ago when I rode my WR250R on a 6 day WV trip. I remember it very well because there was a very attractive blond cashier that I chatted with for a while. Asked her out but she declined. Woke the next morning and after a shower in the lovely showers it started pouring rain...anyway.

So, I'm in Md also for a little while longer so if you want to go for a ride let me know. I'm staying in Bel Air right now and know of several neat places to go. By the way, I have an 09 TW that I ride also.



Matt

 

[Petrus]

Lovely pictures!!

Great stuff!!

 

[scrambled]

Thanks for the kind comments, guys. Here's a video my friend made to comemorate the trip. Enjoy!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJDh_-xKmUs



Matt- blond cashier?! Now I know why my friend always took care of business with the cashier. I live in Harford County, so send me an email if you still have time to ride. I'd love to check out your WR250R!



PS- check out my deep-water fjording attempt at 1:30...the TW is running again after I blew the dirt out of the carb.

 

[John]

I'll be at hatfield mccoy this weekend- May (20-21) 2011. If anyone is interested PM me and maybe we can ride for the day. I currently ride a '99 KLR250 but i'm a big fan of the TW's, it would be great to ride with you guys.

- Here's a great dual-sport adventure on the hatfield mccoy trails - it's a fun read. http://forum.dixiedualsport.com/printthread?id=4841933



edit- Just got back from 2 days of riding the bear wallow(day 1) and rockhouse(day 2) trails at hatfield mccoy. Lots of fun! I put about 80 trail miles total.

Trails were loose and very rocky

I stayed on only the green(easy) and blue(moderate) trails, it was challenging enough for me. there were also black(difficult) and black/red(extreme difficult) that i stayed off with my street and trail bike. I managed to drop my bike twice as it was- breaking off a rear veiw mirror and bending my clutch lever.

Plenty of mountains in West Virginia and if one gets in the way of a shopping center... cut it in half!

two days of riding was enough for me, started to get worn out and saddle sore about halfway through day two. I was really hoping to run into a TW on the trails, maybe tag along with them for awhile -but i didnt. Those fat tires would really hook up well on this loose, rocky and hilly terrain!

 

[dhoenisch]

I actually plan to ride this some day. That's one of the reason I purchased my TW. Of course, with gas prices being so high right now, I don't think I'll be able to afford this any time soon. I drive a Crown Vic, so fuel economy already sucks on that car, it'd be worse with a trailer and a motorcycle. Of course, I could probably just ride out there, but it's hard to get around WV (especially to visit my friends out there) without using the interstate, which has a 70mph speed limit.



Dan