At the North end of the BRP is a road called Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. While researching BRP I noticed that these roads are connected, so we decided to ride this while we were out here.

When we finished the BRP we rode west a bit to get rooms for the night in Fishersville so we cold ride Skyline Drive the next morning as this 100 plus mile stretch of road is slow going with a speed limit of 35 MPH, so we needed about 4 hours to do this before heading west to our next ride in Ohio. Although it rained last night, this morning was partly cloudy as we left to go back to where we left off.

Skyline Drive is just a beautiful as BRP but has a slightly different feel to it as it is a National Park setting, It took us every bit of the morning to do this ride with all the turns, climb, vistas, and our breaks, and by early afternoon we finished with still knowing we had about 250 westerly miles we wanted to get in, or about 5 hours. Luckily when we finished the Skyline Drive, we were able to make some time on some highways through the hills of Virginia. The state of Virginia is beautiful with plenty of hills and mountains. The road was a divided highway, looked fairly new, hardly any development around and it was fast. But it only lasted about 45 miles as it soon transitioned into narrow, beat-up, very twisty mountain roads that snaked up and down the Virginia mountainside areas. Great narrow roads that pasted though rural towns, but you had to navigate the potholes, patches, and bumpy roads. We probably averaged about 30 mph for the next 50-80 miles. It was like being thrown back into the early 50’s with the way the road was constructed – mater of fact it probably hasn’t been updated since then with taking out some of the curves and grades. We now know why we saw people riding Razors around here on the roads….

We finally get through the twisty and get to a somewhat civilized town that has gas. The day was still clear with big white clouds and plenty of sun. We had 100 miles left to get through West Virginia to its westerly line and town of Mineral Wells just before crossing the Ohio River. We gas up, refuel with coffee and energy drink and go forward.

The road straightens out more, gets wider and soother, and eventually is a fast divided highway where we just cruse into Mineral Wells before the afternoon storm hits and to check in, have dinner, and get ready to do the Triple Nickel ride in Ohio next morning.

07/02/23 ride Video