2010 Sport-Touring.Net National Meet, Lewisburg, WV

Day 1: 13 June 2010

Ottawa, ON to New Columbia, PA

Distance travelled: 469 miles

Moving time: 8 hours 50 minutes

Average moving speed: 40.9 mph

Performance certificates: 0

Non-slab ratio : 88% (That's the percentage of distance not travelled on interstates...)

I needed this trip. To get away from real life for a while, pondering what do to this summer (as an underemployed high school teacher). I also needed to discover new roads... This was my third trip south of the Mason-Dixon Line. My first trip one, to Canaan Valley Resort, WV in 2006 by way of Deal’s Gap and the Blue Ridge Parkway, had featured 700 mile-days, riding dawn to dusk. The folowing year, I led a group of Canadian STNers to Sparta, NC following much of the same route: PA 144 and WV 16. And to get to the 2010 National in Lewisburg, WV, the maps showed me the obvious twisty way: PA 144 and WV 16. Unless I got creative, that is.
So I started with this:

In a nutshell, this is what my route down would be: a bit of slab to Ogdensburg, NY, following the St-Lawrence River and Lake Ontario along the Seaway Trail, down New York State straight south on NY 14 -- along Seneca Lake, then onto Pennsylvania but not on PA 144, sleep at a campground in Central Pennsylvania (near where US 15 and I-80 meet). The second day was a combination of twisties and rural sweepers in a southwesterly direction into Maryland, where I would eventually find US 219 which would then take me, 140 miles later, to Lewisburg, WV.
Sounds complicated? Look at it this way:

So I plan, and pack, and check the bike on Saturday, ready for a 0-dark-thirty departure Sunday morning. This is what Colorado Dancer looked like:

Note the lack of sleeping pad near the tent. (That’s called foreshadowing, folks...)
A quick run down 417 and 416 took me to the Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge, seen here in the distance:

Crossing the border was a non-issue, apart from the fact the guard had problems understanding that a motorcycle rallye was held in the middle of the week.
Once in Ogdensburg, NY, I turned West and followed the Seaway Trail. The red line in the coloured part of the map shows where I went, while the blue line is the dreaded I-81:

A few notes about that section: there’s a state park every few miles, should one need camping, the roads are not that twisty, but roam down on some gentle terrain. This picture shows why it’s called the Seaway Trail: it’s on the Saint Lawrence Seaway...

It’s also the site of a few battlegrounds of the War of 1812, as this sign shows:

(The attempt failed, by the way...) And following historical sites of the war of 1812 would make for a great extended weekend ride.

Here’s one of the many islands on the 1,000 Islands:

After passing through Sacket's Harbor -- and not stopping, see the line above about the weekend ride -- I stopped in Port Ontario for a cup of joe. Industrial coffee. Beurk. Should have found a coffee shop ran by a patchouli-smelling, razor-loathing hippie chick. In other words, don’t stop here:

When I found NY 14, I took it south for 75 miles or so, until the Pennsylvania state line. Among the list of things I saw but didn’t stop for, there was the town of Geneva (cute), Seneca Lake (3.5 miles wide, 38 miles long), so many wineries that one stopping at every one for a sip would be impaired before the southern end of the lake, Watkin Glens State Park (and racetrack...)

South of Elmira, NY, I ended up in Pennsylvania, where PA 14 took me to PA 414. It’s roughly parallel to 144, runs about 66 miles before it joins with PA 44. And it traverses not one but two state forests, Tioga and Tiadaghton.

The first part, between Canton, PA and Liberty, PA, is a narrow roller coaster with many whoop-de-woops -- some of them surprising you with a tight, blind 20-mph right hander on their backside, just after you’ve felt the effect of weightlessness coming over the roll.
East of Blackwell, I found the road had turned to this. I was riding just after a massive downpour:

A few miles later, as PA 414 followed Pine Creek, the road turned into a narrow goat path, on the edge of a canyon wall:

The road to me to this town, where I looked for guidos, but didn’t find any:

A short while later, I was pulling into a [url=http://www.nittanymountainkoa.com/]KOA[/url], ready to set up my tent and take a much-needed shower. (A side effect of riding in a portable sauna, a.k.a the Aerostitch Roadcrafter suit.)

On to Day 2

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