A Few Good Rides (July 10, 12, 18-19, 2015)

 Some very good rides this month. On July 10 rode with a friend (who rides a Honda 600 Shadow, the type of bike that I rode previous to my Vulcan) to Roseland, VA. Nice ride....went from Richmond via VA 6 which was a fun road. Had ridden part of it in the past , but this time got up to this place. Nice brew pub with a very nice (sort of hunting lodge) interior and of course I like the beer (which I had one of). Went also though Scottsville, VA on the way...liked that town. We stopped for gas on the way up, coffee and a break on the way back. Looking forward to checking out more in this area in the weeks to come.  
  Sunday July 12 took my normal Sunday ride. Headed to Galley for brunch and rode out to the Midlothian mines, site of the first coal mines in North America. Unlike the previous ride was not much for distance, but was a very fun ride. Heat and humidity were very bad that day so did not make it a long trip, but was very nice. Plus this was the last day of vacation, had been on some really good motorcycle rides over the period and wanted to get back to relax a bit since I assumed Monday would be a hard day after being off for a week (and it was, but that is another story).  

Saturday July 18 made some cool stops. I rode the bike to Church Hill to look at some houses, which were nice. I am not quite sure where I am going to settle when I (can) retire some three years from now....got a few places in mind and Richmond is one of them. I also rode to the Virginia Railway Museum on Hull Street...they had an open house. Not quite the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, NC which is my favorite train museum, but I enjoyed it. I also walked around an abandoned building in Richmond, and had lunch at Legends after a look around Scoot Richmond (which sells Triumph and Moto Guzzi Motorcycles. Nice Saturday.  

Sunday was a bigger ride than usual. Went rolling toward Ashland (just for the hell of it) and came across a huge backup on I-95. Got off the highway and via some backroads came across Hanover. I was there a few weeks ago, but again this is Hanover Tavern. Both this and the courthouse across the street date to the early 1700's. I did make it to Ashland on this very hot and humid day and then rode back to Richmond via VA 1. That is much cooler road than I-95 anyhow. As for lunch...went to McDonalds and skipped the brunch at Galley this week. Covered a lot more miles than I did the day before, which was sort of unusual. Been some good rides over the last few weeks.  

Two Rides in July (July 3 and 7, 2015)

From the previous ride, I did some work on the motorcycle.  As a sort of test ride on Friday July 3 rode around the Richmond area. Not a lot of big miles but did go to some nice areas such as being on Grace Street here at left. A lot of old and very cool houses can be found there. I also rode around the Rocketts Landing
The ride was around some 30 miles, and I had zero problems with the Vulcan. I was concerned about the weather forecast for the day and in fact at the fireworks later that evening watched them under an umbrella while standing in the rain. However, it was a nice celebration of the Fourth of July in Richmond...a day early.

On July 7, a ride to Yorktown Beach. This is one of my favorite places to go to. Took the ride there via Route 5 which is a two lane road from Richmond with a lot of curves, tree lined sections, and best of all no traffic backups. Learning that riding anyplace on I-64 toward Williamsburg often means huge backups and stop and go traffic. Route 5 has none of those.
Rode past a number of Civil War Battlefields, Plantations, and then up the beautiful Colonial Parkway past a Revolutionary War battlefield to Yorktown Beach. Walked around a bit, seeing the beach, some shops, a few historic buildings and sights and stopped in the Yorktown Pub.

On the way back, again via Route 5 passed through Williamsburg after a bit longer ride on the Colonial Parkway (that is a great road)  where I stopped at the College of William and Mary there. While there saw this building which just happens to be the oldest college building in the US. Still in use and has been since the 1600's. That to me is remarkable, but there is a lot of that sort of thing in Virginia. As noted also saw some buildings from the 1700's in Yorktown  and there is a building that old in Richmond for that matter. A lot of history can be found in this state. At any case got back after being out some five hours (riding and walking around areas of interest) and a total of 158 miles of riding. It was a hot day at the end, but a good day for a ride. Much better than the previous trip this year which put me via I-64 in a number of traffic jams. Currently on vacation which is in this period of these two rides and will be doing some more while I have the time off with some more upcoming rides planned.