On The Mountainside
From May/June 2008 Issue
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The author parks his Honda at the lookout over New Castle, Va.

On a gorgeous mid-february Saturday, milder than we have any right to expect, Mike Gunther suggests we ride the Paint Bank loop. MG is one of my closest friends, a skilled and avid motorcyclist and a perfectly unflappable partner.

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TIPS FOR NEW RIDERS

Every motorcyclist has heard it before.

“I’d never ride one. They scare the bejeezus out of me.”

Motorcycles scare the bejeezus out of me, too, and when they stop scaring me, I’ll stop riding. Everyone who throws his or her leg over the saddle of a bike should carry a healthy respect for the potential danger. There are a few basics that increase your chances for enjoyment and safety.
Without being flippant, there are several “Rule Number Ones,” with each being as essential as the other.

Rule Number One: Buy a good helmet and never leave home without it. It’s the law in Virginia and anytime you think about skimping on it, picture in your mind getting hit upside the head by a baseball bat. Helmets have saved my life twice so far.

Rule Number One: Buy a good all-weather riding suit and never leave home without it. Not only will it save considerable amounts of skin in a crash, the weather protection is essential. Electrically heated grips and liner jackets are optional but will allow you to ride on days 20 degrees colder than without.

Rule Number One: Buy a good pair of boots and never leave home without them.

Rule Number One: Take a safety course and learn to ride the right way.

Rule Number One: For your first bike, buy used and buy small. Learn to ride on something that won’t break your back, your bank account or your heart if you drop it. And yes, at some point you will drop it.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, realize that riding mountainous Appalachian roads demands exponentially more skill. Begin your forays into the mountains with an experienced rider who will assist with feedback but won’t goad you into riding over your head. Learn to lean and to trust your bike. Remember, under optimum conditions, your bike will lean way further than most riders can imagine, but seldom are conditions optimum.

In my experience, the greatest hazard in the mountains is weather, where sudden storms bring heavy winds, reduced visibility and slippery pavement. But there’s more. Deer and other wildlife are eternal hazards. Loose gravel – is there any other kind? – is often invisible on chip-and-seal roads.

Riding in winter has special rewards and special hazards. With no leaves on the trees and less haze in the valleys, views are grander and sight-distances are longer. But overnight freezes can turn puddles into ice. Cold fingers and bodies reduce reaction time and bulky clothing inhibits movement and control.

Build your skills, wear appropriate gear, ride within your capabilities, and you’ll never find a more enjoyable way to see our mountain playground. —MA

Why Virginia is for Motorcyclists

Sometimes we need the viewpoint of an outsider to show us what’s right before our eyes.  While kicking tires in a motorcycle showroom years ago in Chicago, I mentioned to the salesman I was from southwest Virginia.  His eye grew wide. 

“You live there? Wow! Here in Chicago, we have a six-month riding season. We have to ride an hour to escape traffic, two hours to find a curve and four hours to find scenery.”

“We ride year-round,” I told him. “Traffic is light, the scenery is grand, and curves are everywhere.”

For motorcyclists, particularly of the sport variety, it doesn’t get any better than this. The area is laced with winding roads, generally well-paved and lightly traveled. With most of the mountains running northeast to southwest, the roads generally come in two varieties – those that run parallel and those that run perpendicular. Those perpendicular have spectacular climbs and descents through the forests while those that run the valleys are faster but equally captivating, meandering through farms and hamlets. 

Not being a motorcyclist here is as inexcusable as not being a skier in Aspen.

—Michael Abraham 

Paint Bank, Va.: Found Again

Waves of mountains stand in this area like great billows on a long-ago crystallized ocean. Each pair of swells envelopes a cocooned valley, harboring the hidden gems of lost communities, abandoned barns, withering foundations and eternal traditions. 

Paint Bank is such a place; once lost in time. But amazingly, it’s been found again.

A bustling rural community in the early 20th century, the town boasted a population of more than 2,000, with a hotel, general store, post office and schools. Since then, economic boons always bypassed it. By the mid-1990s, the general store was said to stock “nothing more than a carton of milk, a loaf of bread and a few ’maters.”

Then a miracle happened. 

After making millions trading stocks and options, John and Nancy Mulheren purchased the town’s historic structures, including the general store, train depot, hotel and Tingler’s Mill, and began their painstaking restoration. 
Mikell Ellison, a transplanted North Carolinian, is general manager of Paint Bank’s Depot Lodge Bed and Breakfast. 

“It’s a real commitment to live out here, but everything is real, the way the earth is supposed to be. We moved back to the Carolina coast for a year and a half and I have no desire for that life ever, ever again. I ran like a crazy woman back to these hills.

“There’s a security here you don’t feel anywhere else. If the world goes to hell in a handbasket, these are the people that will survive. And these are the people you want standing next to you, I promise you that.”

Capitalizing on the area’s natural beauty, relative isolation and abundant recreational opportunities, scores of new faces are being seen in and around Paint Bank.

Ellison said the revitalization has given the old-timers a new sense of pride in their community. 

“The improvements have been made for the right reasons.  It’s been done with love in our hearts rather than dollar signs in our heads.”

—Michael Abraham