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Almost Heaven...on a V7

pyoungbl

Cruisin' Guzzisti
Joined
Jul 16, 2011
Messages
189
Location
Portsmouth
This past weekend I explored the twists and turns in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. My 2013 V7 Special just had her 600 mile service so this trip was a break-in for the bike and a chance to really get to know how I will relate after so many years on 100 hp machines. To make life easy we stayed at the Old Clark Inn (http://www.oldclarkinn.com)
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Pocahontas County makes a real effort to promote motorcycle tourists. They even have a tankbag sized map with eight riding loops that include many of the best roads and attractions. http://www.pocahontascountywv.com/motorcycle_touring.aspx I'll show a couple:
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Route 150, aka the Scenic Highway, is a 25 mile loop through a national forest...it is on Federal land and has very light traffic but the road is beautiful, with sweeping turns and great sight lines. Now, I'm not going to encourage anyone to exceed the speed limit but.....


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NARO is a must do stop. The one hour tour is a fascinating look at deep space exploration by radio telescope. They have a couple dozen telescopes, including the largest of its type in the world.

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Cass, WV, was a company owned logging town around the mid 1900s. When the company folded the state of West Virginia took over the town and railroad as a state park. You can rent vacation houses there and the historic railroad operates two and four hour trips daily. Once again, it's a must-do stop. More info here: http://www.cassrailroad.com/

Of course I never take enough photos to do justice to the trip. Suffice to say that I'll be going back!

Peter Y.
 
That's a very cool trip report. I'd love to go to some of those places. I'm not sure how far it would be but if you are remotely near Clarksburg, WV and like Italian at all you should go to Minard's Spaghetti Inn for a meal. It's got a very interesting history and great food.
 
Thanks for the memories Peter... I spent a great deal of time riding that area in the late 80s. Pic below is from inside the Cass Train Station circa '89 or so (does it still look like that? I'm the young one in jail stripes, rightfully so from my riding antics). I remember riding on the train with the smoke billowing into open passenger cars. The guy in the back of the picture was my Dad's friend, an ex-Triumph Factory Trials Rider and worker from when they had a location in MD. He was a hell of a rider, and the guy that drug us all out on trips like this, and most every Sunday.

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Did you get to the Grist Mill as well?

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Todd, I did not see the mill. Maybe next time, if my local contacts can tell me where it is. The whole area is full of neat old barns and houses that have been abandoned. There is basically no industry in the entire county other than logging and farming so the population has dwindled and many of the buildings are left to fall apart. The work situation is one reason why motorcyclists are welcomed with open arms. We bring $$$ and make no real demands on the infrastructure. Add in the fact that the roads are in very good repair and running through real mountains...makes for great motorcycle riding.
Here's the blog from the trip: http://marlinton2013.blogspot.com/

Peter Y.
 
Todd, when I wore a younger man's clothes I was in a whitewater kayak phase. Among my many foolish adventures were multiple trips down the New River and two trips down the upper Gauley (during dam release when it's a good class V river). Although it was a 6 hour trip back to Richmond we made countless trips to The Gorge, also to Cannan Valley, Dolly Sods, Seneca Rocks, and Seneca State Park. If you like outdoor stuff West Virginia is hard to beat. On the motorcycle side of things there are darn few dealers in the state, none for Moto Guzzi or Ducati. It's strictly BYO parts but the riding is fantastic.

Peter Y.
 
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