It was a beautiful, crisp ride to Monroe to meet five other riders for our 2014 “Extended Fall Color Ride” to Southeast Ohio.
We had a bit of lee-way on the departure time, but everyone was at the meeting spot and ready to go by 9:30 AM! This turned out to be a good thing, since there was a slight disconnect between my “live” map on my GPS/Phone and the printed directions that I’d prepared “just in case.” In the end, I didn’t exactly follow either of them, but we had a beautiful ride on some of the back roads of Northwest Ohio on our way to our first stop for lunch in Mansfield. This was our first stop, and some members were feeling the pressure to stop for both some food and a comfort stop. First, we headed over to the Mansfield Reformatory for a few quick photos, then set out to find some place to eat. After not being able to find the planned restaurant, we settled on a Coney Island downtown and had a reasonable (ableit greasy) lunch.
A suggestion from one of the riders put state routes 565 and 146 on the route, and those were perfect afternoon roads to get us to Zanesville. They angle directly Southeast and dropped us off just a few miles from the Motel.
Baker’s Motel – an interesting place. It looks a bit shabby from the road, with its aging facade and cinder-block walls. Most riders had reserved single rooms, and they were all close to each other in the courtyard. Two of us shared a room, and we were relegated to the “back forty.” The exterior belied a comfortable, clean room that was beginning to show its age. All things considered, the price was right and the rooms were fit for sleeping, which was all that we were looking for since we were planning to spend most of our time on the road. I should point out that the wi-fi signal was probably the strongest I’ve ever had in a hotel room. Helps with posting those Facebook updates and video chatting with the family!
After checking in and a few minutes to rest, I took a spin down the road to scout “Moose Eye Road” which (on the satellite view) looked like it was going to be a narrow paved track with lots of twisties. I thought it would be a good road to take to dinner, but my reconnaissance trip revealed that it was old, dilapidated pavement bordering on returning to dirt. Scratch that! Instead we took an alternate loop that had us riding some twisties and sweepers for about an hour before arriving back in Zanesville for dinner at Adornetto’s Italian Restaurant. Despite a lack of alcohol and minimal selection of gluten-free entrees, we managed to fill ourselves with some tasty food and then monopolized the table for a good while after dinner chatting about pretty much anything that crossed our minds. Everyone had full bellies and we needed the time to recover.
Riding back to Baker’s after dark was no problem, as we kept to the highway for most of the short trip. A seventh rider had checked into his room shortly before we arrived, having ridden hard straight from work to meet us at the motel. We chatted for a while, but everyone was tired from a long day in the saddle, so we agreed to get together in the morning to review the weather situation and decide on the plan for Saturday.
Light rain greeted me when I woke up at about 5:20 AM and headed to the main lobby for some coffee. I spent an hour talking to Gary (the Motel owner) about the history of the property, Zane Gray, motorcycles, and any number of other trivialities before he kicked me out so he could go to breakfast with his daughter. By 8:00 AM, the rain had slacked off enough that everyone agreed we didn’t need to significantly delay our day of twisties, opting for a quick bite of breakfast at a nearby McDonald’s, a stop to fuel up the bikes, and a 9:30 start to our planned 270 mile day.
By the time we left breakfast, the clouds were breaking up a bit and the sun was peeking through, doing its best to dry out the still-damp roads. Despite the positive turn to the weather, the roads didn’t fully dry out until almost lunch-time. This didn’t stop several in the group from really leaning into the curves on OH 555 (the “Triple Nickel”) where we spent the bulk of the morning. There were a few high-speed runs and lots of twisties. If you get a chance to run the Triple Nickel at some point, don’t pass up the chance. The road is much better than I remember it from previous trips.
Lunch was in Marietta at a little Mexican restaurant that several of us have been to before. There was some sort of festival going on down by the waterfront, but we never made it that far! Lunch was a pretty quick affair (made even more speedy by the ability of the wait-staff to bring your food so promptly it didn’t even seem like you’d finished ordering) and we were back on the road heading North and East for the second half of the day.
Most riders take OH 26 through the forest, but we decided to get off the beaten path and try out OH 11. This turned out to be a (mostly) good road with almost zero traffic. It’s been a while since I rode OH 26, but I think that 11 is a great alternate that isn’t on most riders’ (or drivers’) radar. We didn’t ignore OH 26, though! A missed turn cut off a pretty big chunk of twisties that would have led the group back down to the Ohio River, but instead we ended up in Woodsfield way ahead of schedule, then Barnesville for a quick pit-stop in the early afternoon. Everyone was still itching to get some more twisties in, so we threw together a route that put us back on some of the planned roads (OH 800, 26, and 145) as well as a few un-planned sections. It really doesn’t take much to find great motorcycling roads in this area of the state. I personally think that Southeast Ohio is completely under-rated for this kind of technical riding! That’s probably a good thing since it keeps the traffic low and LEO presence to a minimum.
Eventually we arrived at our planned stop in Quaker City, OH. The Wooden Wheel is Amish-owned and had excellent food on the dinner menu including some delicious thick-cut bread and a healthy selection of pies for dessert (which most of us couldn’t resist). We left Quaker City in a light drizzle well after dark (which made for a tense ride through some minor twisties before we got to the superslab) but arrived safely and mostly dry at our starting point within an hour.
Sunday we were greeted by a bright blue sky and some puffy clouds. The temperature was on the cool side (40’ish), and everyone was bundled up for the early-morning routine (gas and a quick breakfast). It wasn’t all interstate getting back to Michigan, though! We stuck to some nice sweeping turns as we meandered our way Northwest through Dresden, Warswaw, Millwood, Danville, and Loudenville.
We’d planned a fuel stop and possibly some food in Mansfield, but one rider happened to notice his master link was coming apart at the gas station. Fortunate to have caught the problem before it caused any failures, we switched into repair mode. A quick Internet search led us to a nearby Harbor Freight where they had a chain press in stock. Armed with this and a few general tools from other riders’ tool kits, the repair was quick and solid enough for the rider to safely make it home. Chain failures are no joke and can cause pretty catastrophic damage. We were lucky that this particular rider was observant enough to notice the problem and doubly-lucky that a local store had just the tool we needed in order to fix it!
Between Mansfield and Toledo we had several riders peal off on their own paths home, so by the time the group crossed the Ohio/Michigan border, there were just four of us left out of the seven who had narrowed their chicken strips in Southeast Ohio. Most of us were eager to get home, and may have been exceeding the speed limit by one or two miles-per-hour. This made for a spirited (and quick) ride home for us.
All in all, this was a great trip. The weather cooperated for the most part, and the Fall colors throughout Ohio were beautiful. Not everything went according to plan, which makes for a more interesting trip. Most importantly, no one got hurt and there was minimal bike damage over the course of three days and about 750 miles.
If you are interested in the route, you can check it out on Google Maps. We didn’t follow the plan perfectly, but the map spells out the entire plan for the weekend.