BMW Motorcycle Riders Association Rally September 2004

Canaan Valley, West Virginia

There were a few people that did not get scared off by the weather forecasts and went to the rally.  I left on Wednesday before the rally.  It was raining and my wonderful wife suggested that I trailer the bike up so I would not have to ride for hours and hours in the rain.  I held off making that decision until two days before departure day. So I loaded the trailer with the bike in the rain. 

	So as you can see it did rain on departure day.  Now if I had left very early in the morning I might have missed the rain on departure but you will see later there was no way to out run the rain for ever.  I drove in the rain until I got west of Richmond, Virginia.  Then it was clear and nice.   Istopped and checked my load at the I-64 rest stop that is west of where I-64 and I-295 meet on that side of the city.  As you can see there was no rain there and the load was doing fine.
Made me wish I was riding.  So off I go west on I-64 and turn north on I-81 until I reached Harrisonburg, Virginia.  There I stopped for gas before heading into the mountains and toward West Virginia.  Going thru the mountains with my rig was slower then cars but faster then the trucks I was behind.  The truckers were nice enough and would pull off and let us pass.   I had to do this on several hills where I was going slow.  As I was coming down the west side of the mountains in West Virginia I stopped at an overlook for the Germany Valley.
	As you can see there is some history associated with the place and it is also very pretty.

I spent one night in a hotel in Elkins, West Virginia.  On the map it did not seem that far a ride from the rally.  However, after driving the distance I decided to sleep in my car at the rally to be closer.  On a whim I checked with the nice folks at the Canaan Lodge and because of cancellations they had a room for me.  Now the first room they gave me was a smoking room.  Boy you don't realize how bad a room can smell when people have been smoking in it.  The next day I move to a non-smoking room and that was much better.  They have an Ethernet drop in the rooms for free.  Now for a tech nut like me that was real nice.  I forgot to bring my own cable so they gave me one.  What nice folks.

Some of the neighbors are real friendly.  They don't say much and run away if you get too close.  After their visit you need to watch your step though.  They also don't understand about motorcycles so you have to watch out for them as they feel they own the place and can go where ever they feel like it and do.

Some folks elected to camp out behind the lodge in a big field.  However, as the rain continued many either left or moved into the lodge.  Every night I was thankful I was not camping in the rain.  But here are some of the folks that did camp.  The resort was nice enough to have port-a-potties around the camp area and portable showers which you can see in the lower left of the picture.

For those that stayed in the lodge the parking lots were filled with bikes from all over.  A few were trailered in like mine but many rode there bikes.

My room was in a wing to the right of the main building and had a parking lot down the hill from the rooms.  As you can see even this parking lot and the one farther back filled with bikes.  Also at the rally were Jim Richards and Marvin Sylvest and their wives.

All was not as bleak as it would seem from the pictures above.  On Thursday after checking in I went for two wonderful rides in the sun.  One was toward Bear Falls.  I never saw the falls but did see some interesting sights.

I also came across some nice stops with nice views of some valleys as shown below.

Yes, it was a sunny and warm day.  I am wearing my summer jacket.  I also road north of the park and came down route 219 and then took route route 72, which runs east-west under the park.  Route 72 is a narrow road with lots of twists, turns and hills. Hey, this is West Virginia after all.  I tried to capture the road in pictures but you just can't get a feel for the up and down from a picture looking down the road.  I smiled when I passed a sign that said no snow plowing past this point.  There were still homes past that point.  I got to practice my turns and where safe doing the outside-inside-outside turn to straight the curves.  And boy were there lots of them.  Ran into a dump truck up in the hills and he was nice enough to stop and let me by.    I also ran into some windmills.

The first time I saw these windmills was when I lived in Germany.  Lots of nice energy being generated using the natural wind crossing the mountains. 

The rally also had a lot of discussion groups from different people on riding techniques and maintenance methods.  Got to meet a lot of nice people from different parts of the world and I mean world.  It was interesting seeing what the vendors had to offer from used parts, new bags by our own Joann Smithdeal to lights.  Both PIAA and Motolights were there and both were installing units on the spot.  Way out of my price range though. 

They conducted several Motorcycle Safety Foundation courses during the rally.  There was the Dirt Bike School and the one I took the Experienced Rider Course.  The latter was almost five hours long.  When I took the course it rained but you can see below the Saturday afternoon class had nice dry weather with sun.  It was still cool Saturday afternoon. 

The did the door prize drawing and I did not win anything and I did not see Jim or Marvin win anything either.  Well maybe I'll win something at our rally in October.  Hope you enjoyed seeing what it was like at the Canaan Valley rally. 

I left Sunday morning and took Route 33 back to I-81.  As I remembered the roads had lots of curves.  Below is the Virginia state line.

Yea, the sign means steep down hill.  As I said there were many of them.  If you have QuickTime you can see one of the curves by clicking here for a 4.7MB movie.

Hope to see you at our rally in October in Jamestown, Virginia.

Yours,

Pat Patterson