Pics above: end-of-trip GPS summary; Touratech Roadbook doing its job.
Click thumbnail pictures for large version.
DAY 8, Sunday – start 12522, end 13065 (odo); total miles (odo) 1338, (GPS) 1283.
Gas – Dalton OH, 4.229 gal @ $3.999/gal, $16.91; 168.5 miles for 39.84 mpg
Gas – Somerset PA, 4.318 gal @ $3.939/gal, $17.01; 190.5 miles for 44.11 mpg
Gas – Alexandria VA, 3.987 gal @ $3.999/gal, $15.94; 187 miles for 46.9 mpg
Stats:
Pics above: end-of-trip GPS summary; Touratech Roadbook doing its job.
Long day.
Left Liza’s at about 8.10, arrived home at 6.50 – just 20 minutes short of 11 hours for 520 miles. Not bad – that’s about a 47 mph average, and if I figured out how long my stops were (and there were several), I bet it’d be more like 55 or so.
Right now I ache so bad I doubt I could do a 1000-mile day. Neck, wrists, back (a little), right knee, and most of all my ass cheeks. Wow. It’s been a long time since I did a 500-mile day.
The ride itself was OK til the last 3 hrs or so. Ass burn was bad by then – just no comfortable position on the bike at all.
Got to US 30 no problem with Dan’s directions and it’s a 4-lane highway almost all the way across Ohio. I got off it & onto US 62 before 30 angles away from dead east-west. 62 was mostly 2-lane and nice, but it was really hot by then. Got a little turned around but my decent dead-reckoning skills saved me in Salem OH, where 62 wasn’t what I needed but OH 14 was.
After lunch – right about 1 p.m. – I got on the OH turnpike for one exit, then EZ Pass and the PA Turnpike (aka I-76) took over.
Boring.
Efficient though, I have to admit. I-70 back to the DC area – and it was there, once I got into Montgomery County, that I knew I was back in DC. Rude, shitty drivers, claustrophobic traffic and muggy, oppressive heat & humidity. Started the day at 80, it was 90 by the time I left Ohio, and 94 at the corner bank a mile from my house.
My bike ran hot most of the latter part of the day – 6 bars on the temp gauge rather than the usual 5. I chalk it up to a few things:
I decided to give both myself & my valiant, trustworthy steed a cool-down by taking the George Washington Parkway instead of staying on the Beltway (I-495). I arrived home sore but in a good mood.
Good trip overall, even though it was shorter than I intended. Funny how self-centered, rude, and downright dangerous DC area drivers are compared to … everywhere else I went. Even in & around Columbus – arguably the biggest city I was near – I never got cut off, never got crowded, and never had to exceed the posted speed limit by 20+ mph to avoid getting run down. Only in DC. I think I gotta get out of this place.
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