RiderX

About a month ago I was at an UnEphrata event at "MMS in Boyertown":http://www.martinmoto.com/. In much the the way Tom Waits would sing it, a one legged man talked of a legendary road, PA 339. With a smile on his face and a glow in his eye he insisted that 339 was the best road in Pennsylvania. He looked at a buddy of his, leaning on his cane and said something to the effect of "I own that road" and tapped his cane on his metal prosthetic leg. This left me with the distinct but uncertain impression that the imfamous PA 339 did claim said leg. A few weeks later I had the distinct pleasure of riding this wonderful road. I rode PA 339 from "around Beaver to Mahanoy City":http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=40.953456,-76.301422&daddr=Mahanoy+City,+Schuylkill,+Pennsylvania,+United+States&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=0&sz=11&sll=40.908842,-76.297302&sspn=0.28178,0.708618&ie=UTF8&z=11. All I can say is wow. A good sign for any road is a lot of BMW GS model bikes whizzing along, though not too many sport bikes. I like to think of us sport touring riders as a bit more discriminating. It is a marginally technical road, population is mostly sparse, with long sections of great road surface. In other words, I don’t recommend anyone ride it. I’d like to keep it all to myself.

I’ve been going to Ephrata 1st Sunday on and off for a while. It’s grown to a point where it’s kind of out of hand. Frankly, I’ve stopped going because the squid and tool factor has increased while I think the number of interesting things to see really hasn’t.

The good news is that there’s an alternative in the works. If you feel like I do and want to try to find a group that’s more about an earnest appreciation of motorcycles, a culture of safe and serious riding, as well as meeting and riding with the like – stay tuned.

We’ve frequently joked that the 5 guys that started the whole 1st Sunday ephrata thing have long since moved on. I think that something like this is just a natural evolution.