COBRA

We couldn’t have asked for a better day to ride today. There was a baker’s dozen of riders (12+1) that turned out at 11am this morning. I apologize for being a few minutes late with an empty tank — especially since I was the one that said to be sure and show up with a full tank and ready to ride at 11am. Doh!

Regardless of that minor glitch, we headed off about 11:20am after a brief talk about the ride and etiquette. We made it to Zanesville without any issues, enjoying a “teaser” twisty road on the way. Some food, gas and we were on our way down 555.

Apparently sometime in the past couple of weeks the county or state decided it was time to tar and patch the road — which made for some even more interesting riding then originally anticipated. But we had a good group of riders and we made it through without incident.

At some point on our way back through Wayne National Forest, we made a turn and I neglected to follow my own riding instruction – to stop and wait at every turn. I thought I saw the distinctive lights of our “sweeper” after the turn so I continued on. My bad #2. We lost 4 riders at that turn. One caught up with us at the next turn but said the others had gone a different direction. We pulled off to wait a few minutes to see if they came along, but…no joy. The missing 3 were all very experienced riders with a couple GPS between them, so we figured they either decided to go another way or would catch us along the route at some point.

Sure enough…15 minutes later, they pulled right up behind us! Looking back at the map when I got home, I noticed that I had also taken a wrong turn after we lost them (should have continued on 93 South, not turned on to 93 North), which took us a slightly longer route around…allowing them to catch back up to us when we re-connected to the planned route.

Worked out perfectly! haha

All in all, I think it was a great ride. The curves were plenty twisty, the weather was great, the leaves were changing and barely covered the road, and we had some good company.

A very enjoyable ride, if I do say so myself.

I hope everyone that came enjoyed the ride as much as Lisa and I did!

P.S. Riding 2-up with the wifey helped me keep the speed down, the twisties a little less “scary” and helped ensure there were no “performance awards” given out. She did a great job as our guardian angel!!