Ohio. On my way, as the muppets were and as Chrissy Hynde said, “no train station, no downtown.” I read on the GNCC website that a huge number of the best offroad riders live within 100 or so miles of the St. Clairesville Ohio GNCC. Powerline park. Think of all the great races that have happened there. Whether it has been super muddy or dust that grenades engines, the place is storied.
I am really looking forward to this one. I have been waiting for this one for a while. It is going to be dry. Dusty for sure, but not a mudbath.
But, before that can happen we have to get there and a motorcycle has be made ready. It will be a big job for Saturday.
Scott arrived at my house at about 8:30am on Friday. We had to hightail it and get to the airport to catch our flight to Harrisburg Pa. On the way into Harrisburg, we got another great view of 3mile Island. In all its nuclear glowing glory. Unfortunately, it was out of the other side of the plane, so I could not get a picture. But, the view was pretty cool. Somehow, I expect to see Dan Akroyd as a Conehead waving to me as I drive by, whenever I see that place. Consuming mass quantities and marveling at his fortunes of working in a nuclear plant. Or at least Homer.
So we drove by the signs to Gettysburg again. We drove by a creek called Confederate creek. They probably found a thousand bodies in that creed, so it was renamed or something. I don’t know if Gettysburg is the most bloody day in history of the USA or not, but if it wasn’t I bet it was close.
Candi was set to avoid tollroads, from way back when when we were leaving Wisconsin originally and trying to avoid stupid toll roads in Illinois. Hard to do in that state. Unfortunately I made her plan a route for us that took us at least an hour out of our way. We were will into things before we realized what she was doing. Oh well, a tour of Maryland was in order. I have never driven across that state, so now I have.
We stopped at a sweet grocery store and gas stop in Cumberland Maryland. It was an old mining town, but had a sweet grocery store. I have sworn off Wally World from now on. It is a sucky grocery store anyway. After the gas and grocery experience, we went to see the sandwich artists at Quizno’s. They truly are better sandwiches than at Subway. Even Lebowski’s friend Donny could not say it better “that is a good sandwich”:
Entering Ohio.
I am eventually going to do a post about all the great signs we see along the way. I am keeping an inventory of signs. I can only really take them when I am in the passenger seat – but I am trying.
We found a great campsite, and the night was cold. I mean actually cold. I had to get up in the middle of the night and get a second sleeping bag. But, damn do I sleep well in that trailer. I love that thing.
Of course, at 6:15 some moron with a quad had to start it up. I am not talking about a quite little kids quad. I am talking a 450 4stroke. Loud and obnoxious. You never know, if you have not started it since 10pm or so the night before – you have to get that thing started up if you want to make sure it is going to run.
I had lots and lots of work to do on my bike today. Remember that Unadilla was the worst mudder ever. In that situation, mud gets everywhere. I had to do all of the following.
– pull all the suspension linkages off the bike and clean and lube all pivots.
– new brake pads
– new tires
– new chain
– new sprockets
– new clutch
– replace the clutch rod
– replace the clutch clevis arm
– jetting
– oil change
– air filter change
– rig up a filter skins since the prospect for bad dust is there
– my float was sticking down, so my carb was overflowing and spilling gas out. carb had to be pulled all apart and cleaned.
There were a huge number of people that kept asking why I was tearing my hole bike down the day before a race. I like to, was my answer.
Back into our rut of dinners and breakfast. This is generally how the table looks.
These 2 guys were having their own race around a post. It was a bit silly.
Usually it is not Scott that looks like this. This is my usual look towards my bike.
It was easily about 7 hours worth of work on the bike. It is perfect now though.
Scott and I had a great dinner of salad, chicken on the grill and pasta with pesto sauce.
As usual, there are a bunch of people who feel the need to ride their bikes and quads around as the rest of us are trying to go to bed. Time for bed, as I think I can go well tomorrow.
I hope so.
“Eh, oh, where’d you go – Ohio?”
Out.
Joe
303 Off-road 