Monday, March 5, 2012

Planning the Season - Jump Off Points

On Sunday, we got talking about plans for the upcoming season.  In the ideal world, the way we ride is to go out the back door and ride the twisties on the blue highways to wherever we are headed and then ride other twisties to get home.  Living on the edge of the Valley and Ridge Province, as we are lucky enough to do, or in the middle of the Blue Hills for a short ride, equally lucky, this  is easy to do.  But sometimes we get a hankering to go farther afield.  And if you spend your whole time getting from A to B at 40 mph through familiar territory, your weekends just are not long enough to see the territory at the far end of "B".  We have had some great times riding the roads of the Valley and Ridge Province in northern and central West Virginia but never seem to be able to get down and back to some of the destination points at the southern end in a three day weekend.

Well God Bless Ike and the Interstate Road System.   We make good time on the Interstate roadways.  Dodging trucks and civilians on the concrete slab is not our favorite travel mode, but it sure can get you from A to B in a hurry.  In the interests of expanding our horizons and with the help of the iPad map program, I took a look at expanding our territory by slabbing to a take-off point, then planning a blue-highway trip from there.  To start, I looked at ready access to West Virginia.  Mostly, this means riding down I 81 through the Shenandoah Valley to the cross roads that go up across the V&RP to West Virginia. 

So here are some jumping off points and how far away they are.  Google Time seems to be averaging about 60 mph on the slab - we might do better than that if pressed.










Address City State Distance         Google   Time
I 81 and I 70 Hagerstown MD 133.4 2:14
VA 37 (near I 81) and US 50 Winchester VA 172.3 2:52
US 33 and I 81 Harrisonburg VA 238.6 3:55
I 64 and I 81 Lexington  VA 294.7 4:50
I 64 White Sulfur Springs WV 356 5:48
I 64 and I 77 Beckley WV 415.4 6:42
I 81 and US 460 Christianburg VA 370.1 6:07
US 460 Bluefield WV 439.5 7:24
I 81 and I 77N Wytheville VA 413.2 6:47
Wise Ferry Rd (via I 95) Lexinton SC 640.9 10:38
I 70, I 68, and US 522 Hancock MD 156.3 2:38
I 68 and US 220 Cumberland MD 195.5 3:17
I 68 and US 219 Grantsville MD 223.8 3:45
I 68 and I 79 Morgantown WV 269.2 4:30
I 79 Sutton WV 355.7 5:50
I 79 and I 64 Charleston WV 419.4 6:54
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1 comment:

  1. LindseyMarch 7, 2012 at 4:59 AM

    So how far is too far on the slab? At some point the day becomes a ride on the Interstate with no time left for fun. A whole day down and a whole day back sure eats into a long weekend.

    Looking back at some of our previous trips, it looks like we average about 40-45 mph when wandering around the twisties. A long day for us appears to be 8 hours in the saddle or 340 miles of wandering. Sometimes, we can push the hours, especially if we are winding up on the slab with relatively clear traffic and good weather. On the highway we go considerably faster. For the sake of discussion, let's assume we average 65 mph. The here is how some days might plan out:

    Slab Back Slab Back Total
    Hours Road Miles Road Miles
    Hours Miles
    0 8 0 340 340
    1 7 65 298 363
    2 6 130 255 385
    3 5 195 213 408
    4 4 260 170 430
    5 3 325 128 453
    6 2 390 85 475
    7 1 455 43 498
    8 0 520 0 520

    So it looks like 300 to 350 miles is the limit to slabbing if you are going to get a short day once you get to the vicinity. Coming home, we might get a short day (say 3 hours, 125 miles) followed by a long haul on the highway, stretching it out to 9 1/2 or 10 hours total which would allow us to come home from 400-450 miles out.

    Any more than that and it makes sense to think about trailering. Slabbing 400 miles each way on three bikes burns up 2400 unproductive miles of tires at $0.033 per mile. And premium gas for three bikes is about the same as regular gas for the truck. Also, in the truck, we can take turns driving and sleeping and so could greatly extend the long weekend time by traveling at night.

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